Danny

Danny was a fag, big time. I saw him come out of one of those theaters on Santa Monica Blvd one time. My friends and I liked to sometimes take that street all the way to the beach, but I didn't mention anything when I noticed it was him. One of his customers once said something vulgar and beseeching to me. I didn't really care, I just told him to go away. I'm not one for violence, unless I'm drunk around the UCLA slipper-wearing population. Danny told him you should probably leave him alone.

Some strippers and porn actresses from Hollywood would come over. I asked Danny, why do you let them take advantage of you like that? They would get advances and go missing, then come back for more. He would only say to them, don't come back here again. I asked him sometimes, don't you ever want to quit? He said every day of my life. I could feel his words. He was as sincere as he could be, even though he didn't really mean it. I would watch him inject the needle into his skin, it took him over 15 minutes. He was so scared for his life. He had a sick dog, that stayed in his room and could hardly move; Danny would get high, and just pet his sick dog, whimper, and whisper sweet things to him. I couldn't stand the smell of that dog, but you get used to the poor thing.

For a while, a young blond boy lived in the house. You know what his deal was. He never had on a shirt and he was always in one of those Muay Thai shorts. He reminded me Cosmo in Boogie Nights. He was fervent about doing his push-ups, but he never left that house. He liked to also show us tricks with his stack of cards. After awhile, he couldn't come up with any more and would just wallow in the ones he had already showed. The boy's mom visited sometimes, she was a fox. I'd like to say that it worked out for me, but I was usually too busy weirding her out, moving back and forth to nowhere, looking at the window for no one every time I would remember. There was a hamster in the house, that never got off its plaything. The young boy became violent one night, and Danny kicked him out.

One of Danny's customers, Bruce, introduced me to the place. He said the fags get the best shit. It took Bruce the jerk of a second to stab that shit into his arm. Bruce was an artist, and he gave me an autographed sketch, which I kept. He would tell me stories about his mishaps. One time after 14 days, he woke up asleep in a ditch and didn't remember anything.I knew he was crazy when I first met him. His eyes were big and moved around a lot, but they were worn out. He became paranoid one night, he told me, "These guys are up to something; they're trying to kill me." Danny said there he goes again. They didn't really frighten me. Everybody would usually go off on their own, once their common interest was fulfilled. The house was in a suburban neighborhood. From outside nothing was going on. I prefered it because you could always go in at 4am.