blurring_the_edges_31_something_to_do birdmad It is Saturday afternoon and you have a day and half to kill in and around the L.A. area. Zoe ribs you about the first time you, her and the rest of the whole mob from the old party crowd went to L.A. "Oh shit, don't remind me." "Really," Henry, dripping with almost snide curiousity, "what embarassing secrets does the Quiet Man have?" "Come on, tell him," Zoe cajoles you, "after all, it is pretty funny." "Yeah, i guess it is." Realizing that they will pester you about it until you tell the whole silly story, you recount the story of your first fake ID and the insanely hot woman you met at the Florentine Gardens, how she took you back to her place and the bout of coitus-interruptus you endured when of all people in the world, the husband she didn't bother to mention walks in and leaves you running naked out the first floor window into the street, clothes in hand. "Well, didn't you see a ring on her finger?" Henry asks, going for the obvious. "No, man, she wasn't wearing one." "Ohhhh." "So anyway," you continue, "here i am, just before dawn, having no earthly idea where the hell in this town i am, trying to get dressed and run for my life at the same time. Her husband, it turns out, is packing a .380, though god only knows why. As i'm looking for a place to hide, all i've got in my mind is that old southern rock song "Three Steps," you know the one where the chorus goes "gimme three steps, gimme three steps mister, gimme three steps toward the door." Anyway, I'm running down until i realize i'm right by Wilshire and i break, still trying to finish getting my clothes on, down the street until i hit a 7-Eleven." "Once i get in to the store," you go on, "i notice that the guy in there was restocking the cooler before a small run of customers came in. Realizing that the angry husband is probably still on my trail, i act like i work there am running late, i go up behind the counter and slip the clerk a pair of twenties to let me hide in the cooler for twenty minutes. Dude tells me i'm crazy but agrees to it, not about to pass up an easy forty bucks, i go in and do the guy the favor of taking the dolly with the cases of pop bottles into the cooler and i crouch down in there toward the back just out of sight. Five minutes later, guess who shows up, storming in and asking if anyone has seen me. By now all the customers who had seen me were gone and he described me pretty badly as well since the room was still a little dark when i took off through the window." "No way," Henry looks at you, chuckling in amused disbelief, "get the fuck outta here!" "No shit, man," you pause, "So anyway, he decides to play my tactic and offers the clerk some money if he's seen me, but apparently he's a cheap fuck and starts out only offering ten bucks and giving up at twenty-five. Dude gets pissed off and gives up and when the twenty minutes is up, the clerk comes in and says that the guy is gone." "Hah," Henry laughs, "then what?" "As i'm getting out of the cooler, the clerk, skinny guy who looks like a tweeker tells me, 'You know, buddy, if he had given me a fifty, i'd have handed you to him personally, man.' so i told him i believed him and probably wouldn't blame him too badly if he did, then i walked a little further down Wilshire and used a little out-of-the way pay-phone to see if anybody from the crowd had made it back to the hotel room and if they could sent Greg to come get me." You spend the rest of the afternoon playing tourist in Hollywood, getting a solid thrill at the sight of the deliciously sleazy bits of lingerie that Zoe picks up at Frederick's. At no point while roaming the streets of Hollywood proper do you see a single major celebrity, but you do happen to run across a couple of faces you recognize from Zoe's impressive collection of pornography and considering what the weekend has wrought so far, it strikes you as entirely apropos. 030501 what's it to you? who go blather from