Ep10, Shane (to Alice): “look, there’s no bigger karmic blessing than doing something entirely selfless for another person..”

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7 years ago, Santa Monica.


Cold.

Damn, it was cold. Penetrating, unrelenting kind of cold that sinks right into your bones and doesnt let go. Curled up tight in to a ball, sitting at the edge of the sidewalk, and all she could feel now was the cold. Which was best, she imagined, since it took her mind off her last trick, with his foul breath and sweaty palms, or the dull constant pain in her soul that had become such a familiar companion.

But she wasn’t going to think about that right now.

There was the next meal to think about. And finding Clive, who disappeared three days ago, leaving her without a backup on their corner. And trying to make it through the night in one piece. Introspection was a luxury she could not afford and neither was a coat. So she just sat there, waiting for the next John to pass by, and let the freezing wind slowly numb her soul.

But the strange weather had seemed to scare off the clientele. Young boys, so it appeared, were not a good enough reason to be out on this god-awful night. Even her usuals preferred staying in their cozy little homes, with their cozy little wives, eating a TV dinner and fantasizing about a young boy at their side. She missed that. TV dinners that is. To think about it, she wasn’t quite sure she ever had one. But the idea enchanted her. TV dinner, and a large woman she might call mom. For in a far off sort of way, she was sure she had that once. Or was it in a movie she saw not so long ago, when she and Clive snuck into a theater to get a few hours of sleep? She wasn’t sure.

Heavy footsteps startled her, and she jumped off the curve, preparing for whatever was coming. Just two weeks ago she had to fight off four goons from the valley, who found *****-bashing to be their new physical activity of choice. She was still favoring her left hand, which made her kind of tricking most challenging. But soon she recognized the rhythm of the steps, her face relaxing into a smile.

“Clive, man, where the ***** were you?” she let him encircle her with his long arms, and relished in the sudden warmth.

“Oh, you know.. A weird trick.. Paid me to watch him take leaks.. Stayed at his place for a couple of days than just split Too weird.” He was slurring and she recognized the fidgeted look.

“Where’d you score?.. Did you leave me any?” it’s been almost a week since her last score, and though she was past the vomiting and sweating, she could still taste the need. Especially on a night as lonely as this.

“Sorry, babe.. I wanted too, I really did… But you know…”

“*****, Clive.. You leave me here for three fucken days, while you’re living off some freak I gave you, and you don’t even leave me nothing.. You’re such a *****.” She pushed him, and he crashed un-ceremonially on the ground, an infantile smile never leaving his features.

“Ah *****, Shane… Don’t be like that, man… Not my deal if you’re not into blowing… One head that lasted me two nights… Could have been you.” He stood again, hugging her from behind.

“Get off me man.. I’m working.” Amazingly, she felt tears stinging her eyes, and rubbed them immediately.

Clive was as close to a family she had right now. He was the one who found her almost a year ago, beaten to a pulp, after she tried picking a John as a girl, and ended up refusing to be touched. He was the one who took her in, realized the potential she had as a hustler, and taught her all she had to know about turning tricks as a guy. She knew he was an *****, but he was there. And it beat being alone. Now, she just wanted to go home.

Except she didn’t have one anymore. Not for a very long time now.

“Ah, ***** baby… You crying on me?”

“No!” she rubbed her eyes again in irritation, “just cold and hungry… You got anything to eat?”

“Nah… But there’s a car coming… go for it, I’ve got you’re back…” but his head was already on the ground, and by the looks of it she knew he’ll be out for at least a couple of hours.

“*****…” she just shook her head, and turned to the upcoming car, hoping it wasn’t the bashing gang, looking for their next inning.

***

Alice figured that as things went, the situation probably couldn’t get any worse. Oddly enough, that was the one thought that made her smile. It was a ***** day, turning into a shittier night, and to top it all she was utterly and completely lost. Why didn’t this god-forsaken place have any sings, anyway? Or lampposts for that matter

It all started when she woke up. And of course it would, as nothing good ever came out of getting up at that ungodly hour. The phone rang, and by the tone of her editor as she picked up, not for the first time that morning.

“Get up. Get dressed. You’re going to Santa Monica.” Was she imagining things, or was the clenching of his jaw actually audible through the bad connection?

“O.k. and why am I going there?”

“Because I said so. And because Lisa Bonnet is there, and apparently so are four of her closest friends, in what is seems to be a very touchy reunion..”

“Oh..” god she hated this man. She hated him, his vile little magazine and the weird assignments he gave her. But most of all she hated the fact that she couldn’t tell him to shove his pathetic excuse of a pay-check up his *****. Mostly because if she had to live with three other roommates for much longer, she’d end up sharing a cell rather that a four bedrooms apartment. “Ok, fine.. What’s the address?”

And so it began. A day that just refused to end.

Twenty minutes into her drive to Santa Monica, she realized she had never actually been there, a drunken night three years ago not withstanding. It took her about five hours to locate one Lisa Bonnet, only to realize she was actually Melissa bones – an aspiring beauty pageant from West Virginia – which when combined with an enthusiastic and rather dyslectic desk clerk – resulted in her bizarre assignment.

And all of that wouldn’t have been that bad, considering the sweet smile and somewhat over the top peck on the chick she got from the young queen-to-be as she left, if it wasn’t for her four overgrown brothers who came on the trip with her, to make absolutely sure their young princess wasn’t corrupted by the sinful city

Sometimes Alice really hated her life.

An hour later, sitting at an over-priced local diner, she got a call from Bette. This was odd to begin with, since Bette never called from work. Nor did she appreciate being called at work – a lesson Alice had to learn the hard way. And today of all days, at exactly 2 pm, there it was. Bette’s number flashing on her cell’s screen.

“Hey hon.” Bette’s voice was far too sweet to mean anything good is going to come out of this conversation.

“Hey…”

“Listen.. I was wondering.. You know Tina, the one from the Dinner party?”

Tina? Blond, gorgeous and amazingly kind Tina? Having a boy-friend, straight and so very off-limits Tina? Yeah.. She knew Tina.

“Yeah..”

“I just kissed her.”

“You what?!!!.. How? When? Where?..” Alice wasn’t sure what upset her more, the fact that it took Bette about five minutes to move on after her, or who she was moving on with.

“I kissed her. On the lips. Now. In my office.” The voice sounded just a bit smug for her taste.

“That’s… Wow, babe. That’s a record even for you… I just hope they have a Wal-Mart in Santa Monica, because I’m fresh out of toaster ovens.” She hoped that didn’t sound as bitter as it tasted.

“Al?.. What’s wrong?”

Guess it did. “Nothing, hon, really. Just feeling a bit sorry for myself, I guess. She’s amazing… I’m happy for you.”

“Yeah.. I think she could be someone real, you know?…”

“Unlike the plastic substitutes you’ve been dating lately?” that she was sure was bitter enough to come through. But she didn’t care. She was entitled. It was well known that a girl gets five minuets of self-pity when her former-girl-friend-now-best-friend moves on to better and prettier things.

“Are you going to use the whole five, or are you going to give me a break on this?” leave it to Bette to be familiar with the finer points of ***** etiquette.

“Oh I think I earned the whole five, especially considering my replacement.”

“Well, you’re going to take a deferral on that one, I have to get back to work, a client just walked in.. talk to later Al.”

And that was that. Bette was never any good at these kinds of talks. It was amazing she managed to stay on the line as long as she did.

Not that she wasn’t happy for Bette. She was. Bette and she were never serious. They couldn’t have been, considering both their characters. She knew that. It wasn’t even the fact that Bette managed, once again, to charm the most beautiful woman in the room without so much as breaking a sweat. It was just so frustrating. There she was, a talented writer, and not half bad looking, and all she had was a dead-end job, and dead-end relationships. It just didn’t seem fair.

Looking at her watch, she realized her five minuets were up, and smiled. Enough. The rule was there for a reason. It was now time to move to the next and more satisfying phase of the program.

Shopping.

Four hours later Alice had to admit that going shopping on unfamiliar grounds a week before Christmas was perhaps not the best idea she had this week. Her feet hurt from walking, and her head hurt from the noise of five gazillion people cramped into a fairly medium size mall.

And to top it all, she’d been driving around for almost an hour, and there was still no exit sing in sight. An elderly lady had tried to give her direction, that ended her up in a neighborhood she had a feeling she had no business being at, especially at this hour.

Squinting, she recognized a young boy- most likely a hustler- standing on the side of the road. Slowing down, she tried to measure him up, and decided he was small enough to approach. Pulling up her car, she opened a window, and found herself staring into an angelic, if somewhat tired face.

“I only do hand-jobs, but I’ll make it worth…” the voice trailed off as the boy realized he was hustling the wrong gender.

“I’m sure you will, but I just need a way out of here.”

The boy smiled bitterly, “don’t we all, hon Where do you need to go?”

“I need to get back to LA. You know where I can find the closest exit?”

The boy lifted his eyes for a second, looking nowhere in particular, and the journalist side of her kicked in as she watched him. He couldn’t have been more than 16… Maybe less, as his face showed no sings of a shave, and his voice hasn’t completely deepened yet. He seemed tiered, and lost. A runaway most likely, and probably one of the most beautiful boys she had ever seen.

“Well, the first thing you need to do is turn around”, his voice startled her out of her musing, and she nodded. “Then.. Take a right on the second light.. Then just follow..” he paused again, but this time his head whirled backwards, and she could hear the sound of loud voices coming from the ally next to them.

“Friends of yours?” she asked nervously, as the voices neared in an alarming speed.

“Not so much..” he was looking around franticly, then bowed his head to her window again, “You need to get out of here.. I mean it, just go.”

She didn’t even have time to put the car in drive, before she heard something smashing into the side of her car, and realized it was the boy, being pushed against it by four rather large men.

“Hey fagot!.. didn’t you get enough last time?!” another smash, “and who’s your friend here?!” a louder smash, and then a groan.

This was bad. This was incredibly horribly bad. Alice was panicking, as she tried to put the car into drive, but she must have choked it, since the front lights suddenly blackened, indicating the car was switched off.

*****.

Hysterically she turned the keys, trying to get her old dodge to ignite, and now they were at her window. It took them a second to realize she was a different kind of fagot, the large rainbow plastered on her back window leaving little room for interoperations.

“Well looky what we have here..” the voice was slightly slurred, and his breath indicated it wasn’t a genetic condition, but rather an acquired one. “A fagot AND a *****.. You having a convention?..” he seemed pleased with his joke, as did his friends.

Alice just froze, staring at him numbly.

“You know, I think tonight we’ll leave the fagot.. ” he turned to his friends, then back to her “tonight we teach the ***** what it’s like having a REAL man.. Waddya say guys?” But instead of an answer, they both heard a loud thud, and then a whimper.

And then all ***** broke loose.

Alice wasn’t sure, but she thought she caught a glimpse of the boy as he slammed right into one of the men holding a baseball bat. Whatever happened after that was too fast and too dark for her to see. All she knew was that a few minuets later the men were fleeing, and the young boy, still clutching the bat with both hands, was on his knees panting and bleeding from a nasty gash on his forehead.

Alice managed to get to him just as he was starting to pass out, and she grabbed him.

“Hey.. hey, hey, hey.. “, she shook him anxiously, “come on kid, don’t pass out on me now.. Stay with me at least until I get you in the car and to the hospital.” That seemed to do the trick as the boy’s eyes opened immediately.

“No please no hospitals please.” Alice just looked into that angelic face, now covered in blood, and despite her better judgment – found herself agreeing.

“Ok. No hospitals. Let’s just get out of here before they decide to have another go at us.. I don’t think you’re up for another round of this.. That was awesome by the way.. Thank you.” She managed to help him stand, and walked him into her car.

“No problem..” he tried to smile, “couldn’t let them.. You know..”

“Yeah.. I know..” she helped him to the seat, than moved quickly to the driver’s side, not missing the smears of blood on the side windshield. “So what’s you’re name kid?” she asked as she started the car, successfully this time.

“Shane.. I’m Shane.”

***