After a stop at the 7-11 somewhere along Santa Monica Blvd around 2 am after the bars closed, me and my LA entourage (more like my brother Chris’ LA entourage) part ways. Chris has to gallantly drive his “ex” home, who is none too fit to drive. I, without car, make the walk back to Chris’ place with my other buddy Chris. Why do walks in LA seem longer than an equivalent walk in New York? I think it has entirely to do with attitude, as in, “Pfffff, where’s my goddamn car!” But that’s another post entirely. So, we make the 20-blockish walk down Santa Monica while Chris (not my brother) gallantly chugs from a 7-11 brand “Gameday Light” beer--right alongside the ever-busy Santa Monica Blvd on which, less than 24 hours prior, we drove through a “Sobriety Checkpoint.”
We arrive at my brother Chris’ place where I’ve been crashing these few nights, and I part ways with the other Chris……..by making out with him. NA NA NA NA JK JK JK JK JK RIM SHOT--that’s not how I became a hooker. That designation came after Gameday Chris left.
Now I find myself standing near the corner of Santa Monica and Gardner. My brother’s place is just a few doors down. I don’t have keys, so I must await his arrival. So, naturally, I gravitate toward the building on the corner to chill and surf my iPhone. I lean up against whatever business establishment resides on said corner and bury myself in the fruitless world of iPhone internet.
People come and go. Some drunk, some not. Some stoned, some not. Some ugly, some not. I’m not really paying any attention, so I’m just assuming all this. I do, however, start to notice that the same guy has passed my corner a few times now. (Why am I calling it “my” corner?) He walks to my corner, then considers crossing the street, looks about, then decides against it. He paces back and forth—he does a lot of pacing—and then crosses to the corner across from me. I’m determining all of this with my face still buried in my phone; I’m trying to look up the recap of the Bears game, but I’m intrigued. This guy fails to continue along his way when he reaches the opposite corner. He lingers there, again, pacing. His antics finally garner a look up from me. I quickly look back down. He was definitely looking at me. Goddamnit. Did I mention that my brother lives in the heart of West Hollywood? The unofficial—though it might be official by now—gay capitol of LA? This guy thinks I’m a hooker. And now he’s coming back across the street.
I make sure I’m so clearly surfing the web and not surfing for anything else that my eyeballs are touching the filthy iPhone screen. But peripheral vision strikes again; I see him reach my corner and begin to pace, I’d say, 5-7 feet from me. He glances over his shoulder a few times to try to catch my eye. Why haven’t I left at this point? Why haven’t I moved on? I wish I could say it was because I suddenly realized that I was meant to be a gay hooker, or that I suddenly had a semblance of interest in men, but that’s not the case unfortunately. This was just too damn funny and, well, weird. Was he going to pay me if I connected with one of his glances and accompany him wherever in gods name he had planned? Or was this to be a mutual understanding type deal, a tale of forbidden love? Was this what they call “cruising”? Either way, watching this man squirm only feet from me as I do nothing, literally nothing, except stare at the Chicago Bears football score on my iPhone is worth the price, or no price, of admission.
This goes on for twenty minutes, no joke. It’s a game of chess. Gay chess. Where the hell is my brother? I’m very impressed with my ability to stay absolutely still as this man hovers around me, bouncing from my corner to the other. I liken it to what I would do if a shark, albeit a very small and unthreatening one (is there such a thing?), were to find me in the shallow end of the pool. This was gold. (Sung in that annoying preschool voice:) HE THINKS I’M A HOOKER! HE THINKS I’M A HOOKER!!! I think during the 20 minutes I may have made accidental eye contact with him twice—enough to drive him stir crazy but enough to keep me at peace with my sexuality.
Finally, I’m bored with this stupid shark. When he crosses to the other corner for the final time—I say “final” because I’m about to leave—I make my break. I pocket my iPhone and walk halfway down the block to my brother’s apartment. I take out the keys that I had all along—ha ha ha I’m a dick--and open the door. But then the thought: did the shark follow? Did he mistake my abrupt departure for blood in the water? I lock the door quickly behind me, but it’s glass and I don’t even want to see his unintimidating silhouette in the doorway whatsoever. So I dart around the corner and up to my brother’s humble abode. My night of as a hooker was over.
My pimp is gonna be realz mad.
-- JEFF
p.s. That's a picture of a dude holding up a Zac Efron poster at the Sunset Junction music festival. Zac wasn't there.
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