(I tried to leave no visual indicator for the reader to figure out where he or she is. While reading this, look for tense shifts to help orient yourself. If you think this tactic is working, let me know. I'd love to get feedback before I get too far into it. For those of you who have been reading this through each of its many incarnations, I appluad and thank you for all of your time and loving support...)
When Johnny wakes up this morning, his biggest fear is that the world will explode. It had never occurred to him that his thoughts might actually cause things to happen, so when he left for work it was with this pit deep in his bowels. Maybe it was an upset stomach. Johnny couldn't really say for one way or another.
Johnny drove his car to work and listened to talk radio while sipping coffee he purchased from a convenience store about five minutes from his apartment in North Hollywood. Johnny had chosen North Hollywood for two reasons, the first being a failed attempt at ditching his car in favor of public transportation, the second being a desire to feel the sensation of living amongst a group of like minded people. Johnny is a photographer for the LA Weekly, and when he says this to people what he really means to say is that he takes what little money he keeps in his pocket and uses it to fuel his car while he runs downtown chasing news stories.
Johnny is submitting shots because he secretly hopes that he will be chosen as a staff photographer. Mr Carroll likes the work Johnny produces but he usually has such a short fuse and so much on his plate that Johnny has never seen a proper time to speak to Mr. Carroll about the proposition. Johnny is well trained, two years at a Junior College, two years at a University. He did not complete his degree because his mother fell ill and he had to take a job to support her.
Johnny has been taking pictures since he was six.
The news came on the radio and Johnny sipped his coffee. He had a sudden urge for a cigarette, but hadn't smoked in years. The morning sun lit everything a glowy Los Angeles white while traffic snaked its way down the 101. Politics prompted Johnny to switch stations as he jittered along. Classic Rock, no... Top 40's? Ew... This new music is garbage. Johnny pulls a Cd case from behind his passenger side chair.
And then Johnny heard a loud crash, his car dipped into the concrete and he was screaming but he couldn't really hear anything. Outside of his window he saw a car flying toward his own and land on his hood. It rolled sideways right over Johnny's roof while he screamed. Glass flew everywhere, some of it into his open mouth and while he screamed he flicked the shards with his tongue trying to get them out of his bleeding mouth. He felt like he was bleeding from every orifice in his body and all of his bones had been shattered.
What had happened? Johnny regained focus and got out of the car. No one was screaming anymore but people had gotten out of their cars. A large boom. “What is that?” Someone shouted this and waited for a response. A gas tanker three or four cars ahead of Johnny tipped and caught fire. It just happened. Then an explosion, the closest car flung backward and spun through the air. Those poor people inside. Where was Johnny's camera? This was bigger than the Weekly.
Battered, he snapped a photo of himself with the carnage of his own car behind him. Someone shouts at him, “You fucking prick! Help someone, how could you be snapping pictures! You God damn Bastard!!” A baby crying. So hot.
“I am helping people! I'm a reporter; I'm going to make sure we figure out what happened here!”
“It's obvious what happened here! Look at that!” A man from the crowd spoke and pointed at the tanker. A sizeable crowd, at least ten people had gathered around the car that had flipped over Johnny's. Johnny moved in to snap photos. It was a miracle he was still alive. He had seen a car flip over him, had seen a woman's face in fact, her hands scraping at the glass.
Johnny snapped more photos. He'd heard her piercing scream over the grinding metal, through her side windows and his windshield. “HELP ME!!” Johnny snapped another photo of the car on its driver's side, the bottom facing the crowd and the tank leaking gas or oil onto the freeway. Johnny noticed that there were so many people in this 101 traffic. More people, some large men, some women even jumped out of their cars and went to the overturned vehicle. Somewhere Johnny could hear sirens, but in this city those could be for any one of a number of things.
It had occurred to him to call the Times or the Daily, but even if everyone else had aerial footage or still frames with paramedic and Fire Department testimonials and eye witness accounts introduced by a fancy news reporter couldn't stack up to that woman’s hands on her glass. “HELP ME!!”
Why had this frame stuck out in Johnny's mind?
Wind laced through the tops of trees and brush lining the hills of North Hollywood. Most, if not all traffic had stopped on the 101/134 interchange, and Johnny was standing in the middle of his lane glancing around the carnage. The large men went to the overturned vehicle with the woman inside. Sound warped into Johnny's ears, “HELP ME!!” Johnny's head snapped toward the overturned vehicle and he dashed toward her.
“I'm coming!” He screamed this at the top of his lungs, loud enough for everyone to hear and they all turned to face him. His veins spurted blood and adrenaline coursing through him, his heart pumping in waves throughout his body. Johnny stepped outside himself for a moment and saw that silly huffy puffy face you make when you run. His was all distorted, his lips puckered and his eyes wide and his brow clenched like the middle of a tense bowel movement. His camera swung around his neck and pounded against his chest. Outside of him, Johnny wondered if his run would affect the lens, maybe knock it out of place or something.
Another whoosh of heat and fire. More babies crying. Helicopters and sirens now, yea, the Times and the Daily already knew. At best he could hope to be front page of the weekly, which wouldn't be so bad considering the size of that spread. He needed a good emotional shot, one of people crying or glass and blood on the concrete, a macro with flames from the truck in the background. Something the people would look at and cringe at the tragedy of it all. The kind of shot that makes coy women cry.
“Hey! We've got her!” The overturned vehicle had been swarmed by large men like ants to a crumb on the ground. Two men stood on one side of the car and put their hands on the bottom. Another man kicked the windshield in while screaming “Watch out! I'm coming for you!” Johnny arrived at her car, but he didn't know what to do.
“I'm coming for you! I'll save you!!” Johnny shouted at her as he clawed at the crowd. They blocked him out, a wall of backs. He slinked through their legs and came out into the middle of their circle staring, as they were, at the overturned car. “I'll save you!!” His first instinct was to jump onto the side of her car, but he refrained for fear of tipping it over.
The large men stood back and watched Johnny assess the situation. No one said much, certainly no suggestions. The woman inside was silent, and Johnny came around to the front of her car. The windshield had caved in where one of the large men had kicked it in, but she was still trapped behind it. Johnny could see the white of her skin through the fractured glass and it drove him mad. He turned to the large men behind him. “What do we do?” They shrugged and the man who had stepped up to kick the glass looked at the floor.
“The police are coming. They are probably bringing the paramedics and the fire department with them. We just wait for the jaws. She’s ok. She’ll be ok. You hear me in there!?” The large man who had kicked the glass said this listlessly, without passion or conviction and Johnny knew that he had given up.
“So we just let the big guys handle it? How long do we wait? And what if the car explodes?” Everyone had been thinking this, though no one had mentioned it until just now. They all went silent except for the collective sound of all of them breathing through their noses. No one smelled gasoline and they all let out a sigh of relief.
“HELP ME!!” Again, louder, more of a shriek! A sense of urgency. Johnny put his fist through the window and it shattered in pieces that Johnny tore and threw behind him like discarded meat. Johnny tore a whole in the glass small enough for him to fit inside, so he got on his knees while the crowd watched. His teeth were grit as the glass beneath his knees shattered and tore up the jeans he was wearing. His camera swung low as a reminder and by the time he looked up from grabbing it, he had found his shot.
Johnny zoomed in on her face, pale and perfect, her blood so dark. Johnny focused on her closed eyes but when the shutter snapped, he captured her looking directly at him through large round blue eyes. Very much alive and very much horrified. The click of the shutter, Johnny let the camera fall to his side and thought he heard someone curse him from the outside. The crowd gathered closer, or didn't but definitely felt like it did. Johnny reached out and undid the woman's seatbelt. She spoke but Johnny was too busy hooking his arms under arm pits to understand or care. He was too overjoyed that she was alive. “You will be ok. I promise you that you will be ok.”
He said this and patted the back of her head. Her blood comes off on his fingertips. He looked at the blood and watched one droplet fall from the tip of his finger to her shoulder. She was looking at him, through full wide round eyes. Very much alive and very much horrified. “YOU!!” And she shrieked loud and long. He pulled her from the car and laid her onto the concrete. She stared up at him, her eyes different, accusatory. “YOU!! YOU!!”
Johnny watches that car roll over and over again when he lays awake at night. Belinda sits with him at times and pats his head. She says that it's ok, but he knows it isn't. Something inside of him never felt right about that accident. It wasn't all that long ago, only about a year, but Johnny keeps that picture of her inside of the car staring back at him all wide eyed and alive locked inside his mind.
Now Johnny does graphic design for the Weekly, a job he ironically went back to since that day. That shot of the woman in the car won him a journalism award. Time did a great feature about the Angelino's that had banded together to save that woman and document everything that happened that morning. Johnny's shot was the cover. You could believe the kind of ego he had for himself after that.
Johnny made decent money doing freelance work after that. He had a lot of credibility, and even started blogging some of his work. Belinda eventually began writing for him. She had graduated from Cal State LA with a Bachelor degree in English, this was after the accident. Johnny had shot her at her graduation. Belinda's family thought Johnny took fine photos of their daughter and they were very thankful for everything Johnny had done.
Johnny moved into one of those high-rise apartments (if you could call it that) in downtown LA. He had this quaint little loft with a room that doubled as his living room and bedroom. It had a view of LA that you couldn't pay enough for though, a grid of light and movement from place to place that Johnny used to watch for house before finally calling it a night and retreating to his futon. Johnny loved most of his new life yet he lacked a sense of fulfillment.
This was why he felt like the world would end today. He had thought about this for some time, an idea of ending it all for the sake of pointlessness. What was he to really do for the next 25 years? How do you top that? Belinda? How do you top her?
Johnny drove to work, down the same 101 he always has, only this time he drove a shorter distance. He had to cover a surprise show for a popular DJ at a tiny venue that had literally spawned over two nights but managed to garner a line that wrapped around two city blocks. He got inside with his press pass; the interior was bathed in light that seemed to give a blood red kind of shadow.
The DJ was spinning music that sounded like noise, but people shook their heads and contorted with the vibrations. The distortion made him twitch and shiver, clearly he had wandered into the intersection of multiple sound waves, each more unpleasant than the last, all thrown together in an orgy of noise. Everything was warbled and the crowd shook with strobe light contortions. Women's breasts glistened in the club light and the bartender kept on shouting at him to order something and “Stop staring at that girl's tits.”
Johnny snapped back, “Whiskey. Neat. And I wasn't staring!”
“Sure buddy. She's a beaut aint she?” He was wearing a black shirt, one of the only colors you could differentiate in this heat lamp like environment. Johnny met his eyes for a moment, long enough to see the bartender was older but skinnier.
“Sure. I suppose. You wanna give me that whiskey?” Johnny rapped his knuckles on the bar counter and splashed a pool of water, vodka or gin that had collected there all over the place. The bartender grabbed a white rag that was slung over his shoulder and with an efficient and broad swipe, the mess was gone.
“You press assholes are a real bunch of dogs. You think the world’s just going to up and cater to you and your fucking stories.” He seemed disgruntled about his job, his obligations to serve.
“Boy you've just about thought of everything haven’t you?” Then the bartender handed Johnny the whiskey. “Pleasure doing business with you.” Johnny walked from the bar leaving a five on the table. Another man passed Johnny on his way to the bar, a white suit jacket, jeans, dark colored shirt and stunner shades. Johnny weaves past him and through the crowd toward the guard rails leading up to the stage. A large chested, broad shouldered man with a crew cut wearing black cargos. He was used to this, warming up to security and shooting the shit.
“You don't see tits like that all day do you?” Johnnie leaned against the guard rail, testing it first to make sure it would support him. He felt the metal of the rail grind against the slick concrete of the club.
“You don’t, but I do!” The man straightened up and stared down at Johnny. Johnny sipped his whiskey and shook a bit.
“Listen bud, I'm here for the Weekly, you mind getting me a good shot?” And the man looked at the women dancing, teetering toward them. One of the women nibbled her finger while they talked and Johnny watched her shake her chest and hips until she caught him. She shot him a smile that said looking was free. Johnny snapped her.
“How’s that?” Security scratched the back of his head with his eyes glued to that shadowed feminine form.
"A shot, you know when the main guy gets up there.”
“Oh. Yea sure bud.” A woman, a blonde, shook her whole body to the music. She was silhouetted in a spot coming from behind the DJ, her hair splayed against the white light. Content that he got what he wanted, Johnny snapped her photo; a clear shot of her jumping from the floor with a very fuzzy DJ spinning her strings from the background. The music continued to play and the crowd was alive and willing to dance. The hallway leading to the patio deafens the roar of the crowd and the music. Johnny recognizes a vinyl tune and snaps his fingers while he pushes his way outside.
Smokers huddled in frosty Los Angeles November weather and exhaled plume after plume of smoke that pillared off into the sky like their own small fires. Everything was glowing street lamp orange. The speakers on the side of the building projected the music amongst the chatter. Johnny watched people arriving fashionably late, huddled together breathing frost from their lips and yelling into cell phones. Johnny took pictures of security checking people coming in, of the crowd snaking around the building, and the buildings over their heads. Johnny loved including his city in shots wherever possible. This place called Los Angeles with its different people, its eclectic music, and varied locations. Johnny had once told his friends, “I love this city, you can drive a half hour in any direction and end up at either the beach, entertainment in the city, mountains and we’ve even got lakes if that’s your thing. You can’t get that kind of thing in New York. Not to this caliber.”
Johnny snapped a photo of a guy wearing a shirt that said “Suckah Free since '73”. Everyone was drinking. Johnny downed his whiskey and got a bit loopy. A lady circulated amongst the crowd, long reddish brown hair. She was short, with small hips but a sly smile. Johnny watched her lift her own camera and shoot pictures. The press badge around her neck hung between her subtle breasts. She wore a dress that flowed below her knees and gave her the appearance of gliding. Everything, but her, stopped and Johnny had to snap a photo of her. She turned to face him, her sly grin catching his eye, her teeth bright behind thin lips. She soaked him in through almond eyes and breathed her hot breath into the air. Someone stole her attention and she pulled her glance from Johnny to accept a cigarette with her lips.
It was then that Johnny noticed the red of her lip stick, that luscious look. His first instinct was to sneak back into the crowd and as far away from her as possible, but he did not. Her badge was within eye shot but at a profile he couldn’t read her name. So Johnny snapped more photographs of party goer's trying not to act like a stalker until the main event came along. A badge meant she was press. Johnny was taught not to mess with industry women, but this one was a fox.
Johnny left the patio after fighting back the urge (several times) for a cigarette. The music pounded on and Johnny ordered another whiskey. There was a light toward the rear of the venue, a single white light sticking out from a pillar that spots whoever dances beneath it. Johnny snapped a photo of a guy who wore sunglasses and a full beard holding a can of Pabst and sporting a goofy smile. The man danced and held his drink up in the air. A few girls danced beside him and Johnny captured them all in the frame.
Johnny was walking amongst this crowd trying to write the story in his mind, how to describe the feeling of being there to someone who wasn't there. The second DJ steps up to the decks and the woman from the patio is on stage with him, taking profiles of him. That fucking cunt! “You think you can take my shot?” Johnny pierced the crowd to the side of the stage where he ran into Security.
So Johnny flashed his press badge and talked the talk but the bouncer shunned him when Johnny tried to walk past. “What the hell buddy? I thought we had a deal! You ought to get out of my way so I can get up there. I'm here from the Weekly damn it! We keep you running strong; we list you and all of your shows.”
“Yea and the Weekly will continue to do so while you fuck off. If you looked like she did I'd let you up there too.” Security crossed his arms and stone faced Johnny right back into the crowd.
“Oh fuck you buddy!” Johnny shook his fist and felt like a fool. He stood against the rail and shot the DJ from that angle. He'd make this work, he was resourceful. She stepped off stage and nudged the bouncer as she walked past. Johnny mumbled and caught her name badge. He read her name and took a step toward her. The crowd closed behind her and presented Johnny with a wall of backs.
Johnny was beginning to feel drastically underappreciated, until he went around the people and saw her sitting at the bar waiting for a beer. Johnny approached her apprehensively. “Your drink is on me!” She turned to face him with that grin of hers.
“What’s your name stranger?” Johnny was focused on her lips, the way they moved in the bloodlight while she spoke.
“Johnny. I’m buying you that drink. Who do you work for?” He still hadn’t gotten a good look at her press badge.
“Me?” Johnny nodded to her press badge. “Oh that… Take a good look at it.” The label said Revolving Door Publishing, Johnny had never heard of that magazine before. “See it works like this. I hear about shows like this and so I figure what better way to enjoy a show then as a press member. So I created this Zine, a blog really. I bring the party to the people.”
Johnny smirked; some no name broad took some of the better shots in the house. “So you just finagle your way in the door? Fancy trick you’ve got there love.”
“Love? What is this England?” She leaned back and laughed a surprisingly low chuckle. Johnny smiled out of jest and looked at her hands. The dress she wore was silk, or at least gave off the appearance, with small flowers patterned into the fabric.
“It’s just one of those things I say. You know. People have them.”
“Yea, I say ‘interfrastic.’ It’s not even a real word, but I find it describes things well, ‘the lighting in this shot is interfrastic at spots.” She chuckled again, louder this time, as though laughter was a battery to be charged.
“I guess so.” Johnny sipped his whiskey and she sipped her beer.
“So do you always buy drinks for women and then just sit there looking all out of place?”
“Yea. It’s part of my charm.” Johnny smiled at her, a genuine attempt at reaching out to her.
“Well, your charm could use a little work. I’d ask you to dance but you look like you’d move with the flexibility of a tree trunk. Thanks for the drink Johnny. See you around then?”
Johnny watched her get up, her hips swayed back and forth and Johnny was compelled to follow her. She went deep into the dance floor and Johnny trailed her. “Wait!” He shouted this after her but she seemed to pay no attention to it. She let her own camera swing between her breasts and she lifted her arms high as she danced. She shook her hips and dipped her knees in rhythm with the music. Johnny subtly slid next to her sliding his own hips back and forth, trying to find the beat, off by only a bit.
When she noticed him she flashed him that grin of hers, the kind that said come here, but not too close, just close enough for me to smell you. Her hair bounced over her shoulders and flowed down her chest and back. She was vivacious, a sight to behold amongst other spot lit beauties. Her badge swung with her camera, Johnny imagined her stomach turning in the light, the flexibility of her body and what her smooth skin would feel like to his hungry fingers.
They danced like this, not talking, for the rest of the DJ’s set. The main event came and the two parted ways for business. Before she left him she pulled him close, “I want you to meet me outside of here when the lights come on. Out front, wait for me. You won’t see me, I’ll be gone for a moment, but I’ll be there, I promise.” Johnny nodded and she left him.
The main event lasted an hour, a composition of records Johnny never thought would go together. Mash up mixes of Pink Floyd with the Temptations, or the Police coupled with beats from old school hip hop jams. Johnny captured that DJ, each of his pictures highlighting a new aspect of the show or the crowd. Promotional posters were everywhere, and you couldn’t circulate yourself amongst the crowd without stepping on glossy note card sized flyers for upcoming events.
Johnny took another whiskey and when the lights finally came up, Johnny stared dizzily at the confused crowd rubbing their eyes as though they had all just woken up. He made his way to the door, scanning the heads for her face, for her eyes. Outside in the frost, Johnny hugged himself and waited for her. Kids in tight jeans walked past him talking about the show, few of them even turning their heads to regard Johnny.
Eventually she came outside, sweat on her brow and a smile on her lips. Johnny reached his hand out to her but she slapped him away. “No gentleman here. I want to know what you taste like Johnny.” Her eyes burned into his own, her blue beautiful eyes. Johnny wanted her.
“My car is close, let’s go somewhere,” he said this with no intention of even moving the car and she could read his lust. The two of them took off down the street, about a half block away until they found Johnny’s hatchback parked next to a house with a stoop that led to a large porch, the kind of architecture you might find in small towns farther east. Her lips were sweet soft pieces of meat that he hungrily devoured. She moaned as he bit her lips and went for her bra under her dress.
Her moans grew more passionate, the kissing stronger and Johnny took that to mean she wanted him. He was already hard, already heavy and willing. She rubbed against him with a small thrust of her hips and he bucked to meet her. They both let out throaty grunts while they adjusted to accommodate two full sized humans in a hatch back. Johnny fumbled at his zipper and removed his length from his pants. Before she recognized what was going on, Johnny slipped himself inside of her. The two of them froze, her above him with her head tilted back.
“Easy bud. We just met tonight.” Johnny grabbed her hips and thrust into her. She moaned louder and hit him on the chest. “Stop it!” It was too late; Johnny was already going, his hips acting on their own. He pulled her hair and kissed her neck. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let him take her. She told him to stop again, but it was only half hearted. She grew damp and dribbled on to his lap.
Coming out of the glow, she realized what Johnny had done and slapped him, hard across the face. “You fucking prick! How dare you! What do you think you just make the Goddamned rules?”
“I wasn’t exactly hearing you complain…” he squinted at her badge, “Belinda.”
“Yea, until you shot off inside me you fucking douche. Who exactly do you think you are?” As she got off of him, he looked down at his penis lying soft over the undone zipper of his pants. “Fuck you Johnny!”
After the accident, Johnny showed up at the hospital where they had taken the girl. That place was disgustingly white; no matter what you did it bled all over you with white that sterilized you. When you get to a hospital via ambulance, especially if you were as messed up as this girl, the healthcare reps don’t normally check for your ID. They figure if it’s life threatening, there’s time for ID later, save the person.
He waited in the lobby for them to call her name. They had three trauma Helen’s listed, according to the front desk rep; two were from car accidents, so he was patient to hear what the Doctor’s had to say about his Helen. Amazingly Johnny’s car had suffered a huge dent on the bumper and the hood where her car had impacted and started its roll, but aside from a windshield fracture on the top right, and some scratches on the roof where her car had barreled over, his little hatchback was still drivable.
Her eyes sat in his mind, staring back at him, blue, alive and very much horrified. Several hours passed and Johnny killed time watching the same twenty news stories repeat on Headline News. A nurse came from the station, a portly African American woman with glasses that faded to a darker shade in the brightness of the lobby. “Family or concerned party for the accident victim?”
Johnny stood up. “Reddish brown hair, blue eyes?”
“Come with me please.” The nurse motioned for Johnny to join her and the two of them walked through a doorway after security buzzed them in. “She’s stable; nothing is broken, a bit of head trauma. Do you know her name?”
“Belinda.”
“Belinda is lucky to be alive. What was your name? What relationship do you have to the patient?”
“Johnny, I’m her boyfriend.” He felt awkward, the last time they had met had not ended well.
“Well Johnny, she’s a bit shaken up and she’s asleep now, but you can visit her if you wish. I’ll give you a few minutes.”
“Thank you.”
Belinda’s room was the largest in ICU. It looked like the kind of place doctors scream for operating instruments while pulling out bullets and subduing screaming patients in. She lay on her bed, her top half propped up. She was cleaner now, no more blood, only her face and arms were bruised badly. With her eyes shut, she looked battered, but still held an element of beauty. Johnny was afraid to speak as he sat down in a chair next to her, afraid even to breathe.
No heart monitor to beep away her pulse, she was fine in most respects, but it seemed strange that they should meet here, after all of these months. “You live in the same city with someone long enough and you’re bound to meet them more than once. You know, especially in our situation.” He said situation, though there really wasn’t one. “And I was thinking about us. You know…like if there could have been an us. I mean—“ Johnny was stuck. He was out of words with no one to say them to any way.
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