Peeko Pacifiko by Ken O'Steen
“Man,” the Professor said with emphasis.
I said, “What?” not aware yet of what his “man” was referring to.
“There,” he answered, suggesting I follow his stare to the source of the “man.”
I swiveled in my seat and saw an extraordinarily pretty woman in her twenties, long wavy auburn hair, wearing a flowery dress and elevated pumps, walk from the entrance over to a booth and take a seat. She didn’t look around, only looked in front of her as she sat in the booth. Andrew beside me was doodling, in contrast to purposeful cartooning, as he, the professor and I observed her. She crossed one leg over the other, a long smooth slender leg, rocking back and forth across her other. The cliché about heroism is that often the hero is simply a person who is so cold or hungry, so desperate, he or she feels they have nothing whatsoever to lose by acting. Behaving out of a similar motivation, recently deprived of sexual sport, and presently marinated in tedium and sameness, I acted heroically. I got up off my chair, and walked over to speak to the woman.
“There aren’t any waitresses here,” I said to her, “shocking as it might sound.”
“I don’t need a waitress,” she answered.
A well off looking guy who had just come into the bar and proceeded scanning the place, held a steady gaze in the direction of the booth, then started over. As he brushed past me sitting down in the booth, he said to the woman, “Crazy little thing.”
Looking at him and not at me, she said, “Buy me a drink, Damien.”
I said to the both of them, “Later,” and as I turned to walk away I thought I saw the woman smile at me, though she uttered nothing.
“Goodness,” I said to the rest when I sat back down.
“Yeah, she is something,” the Professor affirmed.
“What’s she doing in here?” Raul, from his usual position a few seats down the bar inquired of the gallery in general.
“Uh, Hollywood,” the Professor said.
“Yeah,” Raul said, “But here?”
“Who gives a fuck,” Andrew answered testily to the various distractions, busy devouring the woman’s legs with his eyes.
“Close enough,” the Professor answered Raul, “the greater Los Angeles area.”
“I’ll never leave, and this is why,” Andrew said.
A glance back at the booth, after the time it took me to have another vodka, revealed that Damien, the escort of our arriviste beauty was out of his seat, and in transit to the restroom. Somewhere in mid glance the woman started to look at me, doing so for maybe seven seconds, looking down at her drink and quickly thereafter lifting it to her lips. I turned away. Thirty seconds later, as I cursed the persistence of my sense of hearing while Leno discussed the uses of rabbit fur with Pamela Anderson, there was a tap on my shoulder. When I turned around the woman was there.
“Hello,” I said.
“How come this place doesn’t have a jukebox?” she asked.
“Music from a jukebox would make it difficult to discern nuances in the deeply philosophical conversations conducted here.”
She snickered, and said, “Aren’t you full of it.”
“Yeah, he is.” Andrew answered on my behalf. “Chock full.”
“This is Andrew by the way,” I said.
She put her arm out and said, “Hi Andrew. I’m Janice.”
She turned to me and said, “And you’re?”
“Donovan.”
“Donovan? Hmmm.”
“Donovan hmmm? My name caused you a whiff of suspicion?”
“I wouldn’t…” and stopping, she cocked her arm and waved at Damien coming out of the bathroom in order to draw him over.
“This is Donovan,” she said when he got there. “Donovan, this is Damien.”
I said, “Hello.”
Damien said, “Hi.”
“And Andrew,” Janice said, pointing.
And again Damien said, “Hi.”
Andrew grunted, “Hello…uh, Damien.”
Janice then asked Andrew and me, “Why don’t you come over and sit with us?”
Andrew told her, “I believe I’ll pass. Conan’s coming on.”
“All right,” she said, as she turned to me.
“Why not. Let’s sit right down together,” I said, with a great big smile at Damien.
We ordered a fresh round of drinks before adjourning to our booth. My tablemates had been at a sushi bar before arrival here, a factoid I learned after we’d moved to our new location. I had no choice but to vehemently denounce the taste of sushi.
“I think what he’s really trying to say Damien, is that he’s way too cool to do anything as supposedly trendy as eating sushi.”
“What I’m trying to say is, when I have a taste for a sixteen inch radial tire, then I’ll let you know, and we’ll go and have sushi.”
Tilting her head to the side, she said, “Damien here works for a brokerage company.”
Damien nodded confirmation.
“There’s nothing at all trendy about that,” she added.
I chuckled and said, “There’s certainly not.”
“What sort of not too trendy, but just trendy enough work,” Damien said, “do you do?” looking at me.
“I’m in temporary word processing and clerical work, Damien.”
Damien hooted and said, “And there’s certainly nothing trendy about that.”
“I figured you for something a little more arty,” Janice observed. “You sure do like the bullshit.”
“You never know,” I said.
“What’s that mean? I was right? See, I’m not so dumb.”
“Despite what Damien keeps telling you.”
“Being such a clever fellow,” Damien cracked, pleased with what he’d come up with so far, “why are you in this hole instead of one of the hot spots on every block if you go a little further over? That neighborhood is getting, uh…I’d call it trendy. Still pretty shitty neighborhood, but trendy.”
“I used to go over to Joseph’s every once and a while.”
“Where’s that?”
“Over on Ivar, near the intersection with Yucca.”
“What’s it like?”
“Friendly. Attractive women, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.”
“You’re not?”
“I am. I was thinking of you and trying to be considerate.”
“I’m the one who’s actually with a woman.”
“How much have you had to spend on her so far to keep it that way? You can round the figure off if you want.”
“You’re really not very funny at all,” he said, “kind of a loser.”
I smiled and said, “Good one, Damien.”
“Hey,” Janice interrupted, “this is supposed to be fun. That really wasn’t very nice, Donovan.”
“He gives obtuseness a bad name.”
“Love the hundred dollar words,” he sneered.
“You should buy one sometime, then.”
“Screw you.”
I smiled.
First to me, then to Damien, Janice put her index finger over her lips and went, “Shhhhhhhhhhh.” Then she asked me, “You really a regular in this…place?”
“I really am.”
“Why?”
“I like it, don’t ask me why. Also I live next door. That has a lot to do with it.”
“You live next door? In that dumpy hotel?” She frowned. “You just like to mess with us don’t you Donovan?”
“I like to mess with you, Janice. But I really live in the place next door. The Essex Hotel is the name of it. We in the trendy set call it The Sex Hotel.”
“Oh really?” She made a face that was supposed to mock astonishment. “Why is that? I think I’m going to be sorry I asked.”
“The reason is obvious. That’s all I’m going to say.”
“Yeah, I bet it’s obvious,” she smirked. “Sex Hotel, huh?”
“That’s very clever,” Damien piped up. ?
“You’re always wrong, but on the positive side you’re consistent.”
Janice began to laugh heartily at Damien’s expense. “Okay,” she said, “what exactly is it I have to do to find out why you call the place the Sex Hotel? I’m sure you’re dying to tell me.”
“Go outside?” I said.
She looked at me and shrugged. Damien just looked.
“No, you don’t have to do anything,” I went on. “But I’m telling the truth. The reason for the name is entirely obvious, completely out in the open. There’s noting secret about it, and nothing special you have to do to find out.”
“I’m just brimming with curiosity,” Damien said, doing his dead level best to be sarcastic.
“I thought for sure, on the basis of the coruscating conversation you were the probing, curious, inquisitive type, Damien.”
“You’re really getting your money’s worth out of that vocabulary, aren’t you Donovan?”
Looking from one to the other of us, Janice said, “Boys…BOYS.” Then again turning exclusively to me, she formulated the following: “Let’s say, for the sake of conversation, that I believe you actually live next door. Why do you live next door?”
“My ship hasn’t come in, yet. It hasn’t even left the dock, on the other side of the ocean. I use what I’ve got for my own priorities.”
“Like, drinks?” she asked, smiling.
“Clever girl. Nothing more important in these troubled times than drugs and alcohol is there?”
“Oh no.”
“And time. Drugs, alcohol and time…in no particular order.”
“Whaddaya say we finish these and take off?” Damien proposed, only to Janice of course.
Janice glanced down at her glass, which was a quarter full. “Ummm, not just yet Damien. Why don’t we get another drink? Please…pretty please?”
“I’ve still got half a beer here. But I’ll get another one for you.” He got up abruptly and started for the bar.
“You and Damien really have to stop acting like such boys,” she scolded in a conspicuously girly way.
“But we are boys.”
She was explaining what a nice fellow he really was when he returned with her drink. After sitting it down and after she’d thanked him for it, he appeared to collect himself before asking in a straightforward way, “So do you have any opinions on all the investments and developments in the not too distant, trendy, Hollywood neck of the woods?” Not so straightforwardly he added, “If that’s not too mundane a subject.”
“As long as you can get a slice of greasy pizza there at four in the morning, I don’t give a shit what they develop there or don’t.”
“You know, I was down there…you know…in that neighborhood,” Janice began, her effort to contribute to the new era of détente, “four or five months ago, and there were all these people standing with candles in front of that tall, weird looking building that’s on Vine. I wonder what THAT was about?”
“You mean the building shaped like a stack of records?” Damien asked, against his better interest unable to hide surprise.
Janice nodded yes.
“That’s the Capitol Records building, sweetheart.”
“Oh.”
“That must have been the anniversary,” I said, “of the shooting of Lennon. They do that every year on the anniversary.”
“John Lennon?” she asked proudly. “The Beatles?”
“One in the same,” I said.
“That was awful. I don’t actually remember it, since I was, like, three years old or something, but it was an awful thing.”
“Yep.”
“Let me feel your skin,” she said to me out of the blue, and reached her hand across the table, rubbing the back of her hand up and down against my cheek. “Amazing. Such pretty skin,” she declared.
Damien rolled his eyes in quite dramatic fashion.
“I have to attribute it,” I said, “to years of soaking my face in Ivory Liquid.”
“Where do you get this stuff?” she said.
“I don’t know. Sorry. I take it back.”
“Wasn’t there a commercial years ago where a woman soaked her hands in Ivory Liquid? You really learn a lot, really, from Nick-at-Nite. Do they even make Ivory Liquid anymore?”
“Feel free to field that one, Damien.”
“I have no idea if they still make Ivory Liquid,” he said.
“I remember the commercial, Janice. I’m as in the dark as Damien is as to whether it’s still sold.”
“I’m going to look next time I go to the grocery store,” she said. “I’ll let you know.”
“Good. I don’t think either Damien or I will get a full night’s sleep until we find out…right, Damien?”
“Uh huh,” he muttered.
“Such a meanie,” Janice pretended to scold.
“Nahhh.” Since nobody else was ready to say anything, I ventured, “So Damien, investment banking?”
“Is there more?” Damien asked. “Is that your clumsy way of asking me to tell you something about investment banking?”
“Absolutely not. I’d be offended…probably nauseated if you did.”
“So I gather, Mr. Temporary Clerical Work, something as lucrative as investment banking wouldn’t meet your approval?”
“I haven’t given it much thought. I bet banking, real estate and insurance are the bottom three on Kohlberg’s Scale of Moral Development, though.”
“I don’t know what that is, but I guess that’s why you brought it up.”
“No Damien. I figured you’d be entirely familiar with it, and we’d hash the subject out till it was exhausted.”
“I think this is exhausted…listening to all this horseshit has exhausted me. Janice?” he implored hopefully.
“Damien?” she answered, defeating hope.
“Then if I’m going to stick around even longer I guess I should try to learn as much as I can from such a…well, from such a learned man as yourself, Donovan.”
“Okay. What do you want to know? Shoot.”
Stony-faced, he said, “It strikes me as a real shame, a tragedy, that someone as gifted as you has to squander all of those brains doing simple-minded clerical work. Couldn’t you find another job, genius? You’ve made a career out of office work, and hanging around getting drunk in shitholes?”
“Now that you mention it, I haven’t made a career out of temporary office work, though lately, it’s had its rewards. I was in a different line of work before that, squandering my brains on something else. But I resigned in order to relocate geographically.”
“What line was that?”
“I was a contributor to a reference book called The Encyclopedia of American Political History, published by Pyramid Books, the actual employer.” I was ever ready to whip out the old resume.
“Uh huh, you worked on some kind of history book, supposedly. Doing what? You’re being pretty vague for some mysterious reason,” he said with a clearly pleased chuckle.
I explained the basic procedures to him, and the basic facts, as they pertained to my participation, the way I had explained them to others before.
“I guess I’ll have to look at one of them sometime,” he told me. “What kind of topics would it have?”
“It’s an encyclopedia. It’s alphabetical,” Janice assisted helpfully.
“Get it, Damien?” I indulged myself with my own chuckle, and added, “A history of American politics in encyclopedia form. Look, I’ll write you up an example. I’ll do a quick sample of an entry in the encyclopedia, exactly in the form it would be in the book, except the contents will be the stuff I include when I do them just for fun.” I explained I would need pen and paper, and though they seemed not fully comprehensive of the endeavor about to be undertaken they kept it to themselves, quietly providing what I’d asked them for, paper from Damien, pen from Janice’s purse.
While I wrote, Janice excused herself to
Janice was back at the table and she and Damien were exchanging opinions about the customary amount of ice in Cosmopolitans when I finished writing. “Anytime you’re ready,” I said, holding the paper up.
“Yaaay,” Janice chirped, clapping her hands. Damien only said, “All right,” and folded his arms.
“We’re consulting the Encyclopedia of American Political History, turning to the entry,” I said, “for The Meese Commission. Ah, here we are: