CENTURY CITY, LOS ANGELES, 1996
A MARLBORO, I'D KILL FOR ONE
Shane McCutcheon came out of the 7-Eleven, irritated, because the other clerk wasn't working there—the one who didn't card for cigarettes. She saw Clive and rolled her eyes. Clive shrugged. But he was lucky in that way—he didn't smoke tobacco.
Unlucky in almost every other sense—his mom began renting him out to pervs when Clive was in Huggies, he'd tested positive right before quitting middle school, though whether that was because of dicks or Clive's love affair with the needle, Shane could only guess.
The two fifteen year olds walked to the curb and surveyed the cars. Nothing would seriously be driving by, no horny tricks, really, until it got a bit dusky, and the first thing Shane would demand was that they buy her a Marlboro hard pack, or maybe a carton, goddamnit.
"Do you think I could get a trick to buy me a carton of Marlboros, Clive?" Shane asked, gritting her teeth. She'd borrowed a Viceroy from a senior citizen at Mickey Dee's earlier…but Viceroys, ICK.
"What, for one of your famous hand jobs?" It was a running joke among Clive and his friends—most of whom knew Shane was a girl, and had to keep her pants on to fool the chicken hawks—that hand jobs weren't too much fun.
"Shane, you've got to use your mouth a little." Clive said, chuckling. "Most of these guys want to go down on you, which of course ain't gonna happen, but a few might like a quick BJ, and you can't get AIDS from that, I don't think."
"Bullshit, and besides, what about Eldred, he lost an eye from oral herpes, or whatever." Shane said vehemently. "I can barely stand to touch dick, much less mouth it."
"You may be in the wrong business then, shweetheart" Clive said airily, as he waved at an approaching Lexus. The car slowed down and a chubby white haired corporate type motioned Clive in. Shane thought she'd seen him before, just one of the closet cases who got a little yum-yum before going home to bounce the grandkids on his knee.
ALICE IS FASCINATED
Alice Piezecki smiled at Taft…such a beautiful boy, with vacant eyes. And he must be mystified. All the sophomore girls at Campbell Hall would pawn a kidney to be in the passenger seat of Taft's Miata, and this ditzy little blonde just wanted to jump out in the red light district.
"Al, you sure you want to, um…" Where had he gone wrong? Taft had told Alice about his uncle getting busted for picking up a hustler down here, and the crazy bitch says "Show me where" okay, whatever, and now she's jumping out of my car?
"I'll catch you later, Taft!" Alice waved goodbye to the stunned lacrosse player and jogged down Santa Monica Boulevard, looking around. Alice was curious. Curious about a lot of things.
Like the heroine in her favorite childhood book, "Harriet the Spy", Alice went around watching people, and listening to stories, but possibly she was too loud, talked too much, because a good writer can't be too much of a gossip, and Alice loved to talk.
But this male prostitute thing is so interesting. Alice's mother, a former soap opera ingénue, had had many young boyfriends who she'd bought expensive gifts for—but from the little Alice had gleaned from her readings, the average male prostitute serviced other males, gay guys, of course.
Men apparently had sex with each other in cars, in public restrooms, it was SO intense. But look at these kids! Most of them didn't look much older than Alice, although she could tell she was getting strange looks in her Campbell Hall uniform.
Alice smiled, gave an insecure wink to a boy with a bleached blonde hairdo, and kept walking around. Oh wow. A car just pulled up. Was that—Fiona's dad? Alice knew the license plate "CD 4808" and yes, it was the Mazda sedan—oh gross, the bleachy boy was getting in. Eew.
And that bastard was always giving Fiona shit about her Precalculus grades? Stay at home, weirdo. Yuck. And he's, like junior warden at St. John's Cathedral, too. Icky poo poo.
Alice took one of her dad's purloined Pall Malls out of her purse and lit it abstractedly. No one was going to lecture her about the Surgeon General (who probably went to male prostitutes) today. Not in THIS neighborhood.
Oh fuck. Taft is driving down the Boulevard, looking for me. NO, NO! Go away! This is fascinating, and I can't have the doofus—I bet Leslie Stahl doesn't have problems like this. Alice spotted a dark haired kid in a leather jacket leaning against a signpost.
"Do-do you know anywhere where I could like, duck, an alley or something?" Alice asked breathlessly. "I'm being um, stalked."
"Whatever. But first, give me a cigarette—ugh, Pall Malls, what are you, Hank Hill?—never mind, give me them, and you can go right there, in the 7-Eleven, there's a bathroom with a window. Give me your cigarette, too, the one your smoking, the clerk is a douche. What's a girl doing down here on Santa Monica anyway?"
"You're down here." Alice pointed out, before surrendering her tobacco and trotting into the 7-Eleven.
Fuuuck is it that obvious? Shane bit her lip.