I’d walked down the hill to Sunset because I needed some time to think and I needed a break from my wife. She was due in a week and I was tired of her endless harassing. First, I was not loving enough and then I was suffocating her with my ‘stinking feet’ and my ‘furnace’ of a body under the duvet. It’s linen. So I walked right out of there and headed down Echo Park Ave smoking a cigarette feeling like I had a ball, perhaps a golf ball, shaped tumor in my chest cavity. I’d been feeling it growing for months now. As soon as we got into the third trimester, I started to feel this twinge in my chest. It was like a small spark at first, flickering here and there, but as the weeks wore on it was almost as if I could hear the thing growing.
I got to the corner and my favorite taco stand was busy. It was a Thursday, but the sidewalk was packed and many young people were out and about. I turned left and headed South on Sunset, a path that would eventually get me close to Chinatown if I kept walking that far. I didn’t really know where I was going or what my plan was, but I just needed to get out of that damn house and away from my wife’s attitude. A group of girls with what must have been bandanas tied around them for shirts passed me giggling. I watched one, who had a particularly short skirt on, closely as they approached. She didn’t exactly look back, but I caught her eye as I took a drag on my smoke and she laughed. I winked and kept walking, their voices fading quickly in the noise of the street.
I walked for a while without any real ambition. There were a number of cool bars along this stretch that were all packed and had crowds mingling outside their doors smoking cigarettes and weed. I needed a drink, but I wasn’t sure that I was up for wading through the crowds so I kept walking. There was a bar a few blocks up where I knew the bartender. It was a quiet, dimly-lit place and was really more of a date spot. I’d gone there once on a similar night to this one and liked the place, so I decided that would be my first stop. The bartender was a dancer named Erin and her husband was a comic book writer of some kind. She generally was friendly when I showed up and made me feel like I was wanted. The only problem with the bar was that there is always this bouncer guy there that gives me the creeps. He’s not a huge guy, but large enough and had this kind of greasy, slicked back ponytail. The thing is that when you hand him your ID, he stares back at you with this kind of dead look from his grayish eyes. Like you’re standing there for uncomfortably long periods waiting until hethen just nods inside to tell you to come in. I used to joke with a friend of mine when we would go there that he was definitely a murder, potentially a psychopath.
I finished my second cigarette and stamped it out on the curb, then walked up to the door and gave my ID to the guy. He looked at me with that dead stare as he blocked the whole door with his body, then said, “Walk down the street next time you smoke.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded and shuffled past him into the bar. You could never really see in there at all, the light was so low. There was a long concrete bartop with uncomfortable metal stools and across from that some low booths for two where couples usually talked close and quiet to each other. That place was filled, but I found an empty stool and jumped up onto it. Erin was down the bar laughing with some ugly-looking middle aged guy. He was also often in here when I came and I just couldn’t stand him. His name was Adam and he owned the local recording studio where all the indie musicians played. He dressed like he was twenty years old, with rings and bracelets, baggy jeans that were twelve sizes too big, and these stained workwear jackets. He had one of those haircuts that was shaggy but short at the same time. Who did this guy think he was? He was just a bit older than me, but at least I was married, had a house, and was starting a family.
After a while, I managed to flag down Erin and she walked toward me smiling. I leaned forward to look at the menu board and she set up with her chin on her elbow across from me, “What can I getcha?”
“Oh, just a beer,” I said. She moved for a pint and poured me one. I was thirsty at this point and really looking forward to the cold beer sliding down my throat. The cigarettes I’d smoked were building up a dusty, tarry coating over my tongue.
“You reek of cigarettes,” she said as she slid the beer across to me.
“I’m having a night. They make me feel, I need them.”
“Maybe I’ll have one with you later.”
“That bouncer guy that’s always here,” I said, “doesn’t he creep you out?”
She looked toward the door where the ponytailed guy stood looking at the IDs of two very young looking girls. Shook her head and laughed. “Tony? He’s a sweetheart”
“Really?
“Been here ever since I have,” she said. “And that was, let’s see,” she turned her head up and thought for a moment, then, “actually he’d just had a kid.”
I couldn’t help but be surprised. “A kid?”
“Little girl. She’s sweet.”
I just nodded. Gritted my teeth and took a big gulp of my beer. She headed off to help someone else so I turned and looked back at Tony. He was standing there rubbing his fingers together trying to entertain himself. He always stood there just kind of staring off silently. Always looking just out of someone’s line of sight. It was weird. I never really understood why that place even had a bouncer, it never got that busy really.
Erin never really made it back to talk to me after that. So I just sat and sipped my beer, trying to taste the cool crispness of every mouthful. I was really enjoying it until I felt a twinge in my chest and my shoulders tensed up. My breath was suddenly hard to get and I took some shallow inhales trying to wade off the tension. It was like someone was squeezing my insides with a tight fist, trying to pull them out of me. After a minute or two, I managed to get a deep breath and calm down. But I wasn’t really having a good time there, so I downed the rest of my beer and got up to leave. I was too stressed to get Erin’s attention to pay. Adam had just told her a joke down the bar and she was bent over laughing her ass off. I figured I’d get them next time, but I slipped a cigarette out of my pack and left it there next to my glass on the bar.
Outside I walked fast away to try to get the bouncer’s eyes off the back of my head. I went two whole blocks, then stopped and took out my cigarettes. The night was cool for LA and I had just a thin black zip-up hoodie I’d gotten from my mom for Christmas on. It was just a plain colored hoodie from Old Navy. She loved to shop at Old Navy. I zipped it up close to the neck and sparked my lighter. The wind made me take a few tries, but then the smoke filled my mouth and I took a deep inhale. As soon as I did, my limbs relaxed and I thought I could hear the thing in my chest die a little. It was just then that I started to hear the first notes. They came on the wind like smoke, diluted and thin. Just the faintest whisper, I stopped and stood still trying to track their direction with my ear. At first I could just hear car horns and buses stopping and people screaming, but then a few more notes drifted toward me over the noise.
I was right on the corner of a dead end street that turned to the left off of Sunset. To my right there was a strip of shops on one side, all of which were closed up for the night with bars or garages raised, and the remains of a recently-closed Thai Food place that my wife really liked. The satay, if I remember. On the left there was a dumpster and some pieces of cardboard scattered on the ground with a ripped sleeping bag. Then past that, the entrance nearly covered by tall grass, there was a set of steps leading up the hill between some buildings. I took a look around, but there was no sign of the homeless guy who had been here or anyone else for that matter. I smoked my cigarette and thought for a moment. I couldn’t really see the top of the stairs. They went up for a bit, then turned to the left and ducked behind the base of an Art Deco looking building. The cigarette tasted good, but I really needed another drink to wash out the soot. I was thinking about heading to another small beer bar I knew, but then another group of notes drifted down toward me. They sounded almost like a duck, a kind of squawk that pierced through the night and straight to your ears. But they had a certain warmness at the same time, a woody, earthy hominess that seemed to drag and expand as it went. I decided I had to find out where the music was coming from, so I went to the stairs and started climbing.
It was a steep climb and the steps were covered in crap. There were skittles wrappers and beer cans and a lot of cigarette butts. I thought that was kind of a fire hazard with the tall grass, but they had probably been there for a long time. Every couple steps I was finding feathers, which I thought could either be from the sleeping bag or the ducks I was hearing. I’d never seen ducks this far out on Sunset, but there were dozens of them that hung out around the lake down near the 101. As I kept climbing, the music came into focus and I could hear it more clearly. It was less a sequence of woody squawks but a kind of arrhythmic jazz coming from what I thought was a saxophone. I played the sax when I was in middle school band. It was my grandfathers, and his fathers before him – who I had been told before, by my mother, had played in some clubs during the Big band era.
I got to a small landing where I had assumed the stairs continued up behind the building, but actually they came to a sudden stop in this dark sort of courtyard entrance to the building. It was tucked into the hill and looked like it hadn’t been maintained for years. The entrance was small, but encircled in black and white tiles that were sunworn and more like a range of different grays. The door was painted repeatedly white, but the sun had done its damage so that the paint cracked and flaked off. I stood there, breathing heavy for a moment as I caught my breath, when the music started again loudly just upstairs from me. The door was open just a crack and I could hear the music coming from inside. It was clear. Much clearer now. It was some sort of jazz that seemed to be going nowhere but eventually came to a sort of resolution. I guess that’s all jazz. I smoked and listened and turned to stare back at where I had come from. The grass was tall and I was tucked back, but looking out you could see the lights of the city spread out below and the beacon that is the US Bank building downtown from there. It was a beautiful, lonely night. The music had faded out and I stood there listening to the muted rhythms of the city. I heard the car horns below me and the faint sound of a police chopper in the distance. Screams and laughter. I breathed deeply as the saxophone started to play again and decided that I needed to find whoever it was that was playing. I’d already come this far. I finished the rest of my cigarette, stubbed it out with my foot, and walked inside the door.
Inside there was a small atrium with some overfull numbered mailboxes on the wall. A dimly lit, tiled hallway led off to the left. I could hear the music was coming from upstairs and found a stairway tucked around a corner to the right. I climbed each step slowly. They were worn with what was surely years of feet, but seemed not to have been used recently as they were covered in dust. The ceilings were dark and the corners were full with cobwebs.
Upstairs, the music got louder. The hall seemed empty. Each door was numbered, but there were no lights on anywhere. A small window at the end of the hallway let in some ambient light that showed the worn hardwood floor. It creaked with every step I took. I kept going until I got to the final door on the left, where the saxophone was now loudly ringing out through the door toward me. I could feel the presence of someone inside, but I stood frozen standing there. It felt odd to knock on the door. Especially after walking in this random, seemingly abandoned building. What would they think? Whoever they were. They probably didn’t want visitors, but they also were loudly playing music. The way they were playing, it was almost as if they were inviting someone to come talk to them about it. I decided to knock on the door.
As soon as I rapped my fist, the music stopped. It was silent for a moment and I could hear a scream far off in the distance outside. I started to regret my actions and thought about turning around and going home right then, but suddenly the door opened..
“Hello?” Said a small woman with a jagged, yellow smile and dark hair from the crease in the doorway. She was young. Very young. Maybe twenty and petite. Much shorter than me and with loop piercing in her nose. “Who are you?”
“Um,” I staggered, standing there staring at her. “I just – I heard your music and so I walked in and – well, I don’t know actually I just kind of knocked on your door.”
She nodded, peering up at me with inquisitive eyes. They were deep brown and surrounded by dark eye shadow. I noticed then that she was dressed in black clothes, with thick-heeled boots and tights under a miniskirt.
“Not who I expected to be playing jazz.”
“Jazz?” She said.
I chuckled, “What else would you call it?”
I thought for a moment, not sure what to say. Then said, “I used to play saxophone when I was younger, actually.”
She turned and walked away from me into the room. I stood there for a second, not really sure what to do. She seemed to be inviting me in, but hadn’t said a word. I watched as she crossed the small space to a circular wooden table near the window, grabbed a glass of wine, and took a sip. I stepped forward tentatively and looked around. Unconsciously closed the door behind me. The place was tiny. More of an old hotel room than an apartment. There was a small twin bed to the left against the wall, the table near the window that she was now sitting at, and a door across from the bed on the right that I assumed was a bathroom.
“Do you want a drink?” She said, interrupting my snooping and held out her glass of wine. I stared at her and then the bed. Took the glass and then a seat on the edge, being careful not to encroach too much on her space. She went back to the small table and took a seat in the single wooden chair.
“You live here?” I asked. She was drinking straight from the bottle now. Staring at me. I took a sip from the glass and grimaced. It was cheap, shitty red wine.
“Why’d you come up here?” She asked.
I tried to lean back on the bed, but didn’t know what to do with my body. I said, “I told you. The saxophone.”
“Oh,” she eyed me, thinking, “I see.” She took another drink of wine.
“It was beautiful,” I found myself saying.
“Yeah?” She said. I just nodded. Fingered the glass in my hand. I didn’t know what I was doing here. I was feeling uncomfortable.
“What do you want?” She said.
“Me?” I said, “I don’t know, I guess I just wanted to talk. I just wanted to ask about your saxophone.”
“Saxophone?” She seemed surprised.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t have a saxophone,” she said.
I scoffed, “What do you mean? I heard you playing from down on the street and followed the sound all the way up here?” I couldn’t understand why she was saying that. I had heard the music clear as day. The woody, squawking tone. But looking around the small room, I didn’t see anything resembling a saxophone. I bent over, spilling some wine, and looked under the bare, metal-framed bed. There was nothing there but an old, trunk-style suitcase and some dust bunnies.
“I’m not kidding you,” she said and laughed, taking another sip from the bottle of terrible wine.
“You can’t be serious?” I said.
“I don’t even have a stereo. Or a turntable,” she said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She shook her head and downed a large gulp from her bottle. Stood up and looked at me. I was staring, confused as hell, as she slowly crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed next to me.
“What are you doing?” I asked and set the glass down on the floor.
She smirked, “What am I doing?”
I just nodded. Gulped. Then said, “I don’t, uh – I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Sure you don’t, honey,” she said and then put her hand on my thigh. It was young, soft, and smooth.
“What’re you–,” I said, but she interrupted me with a kiss before I could finish my sentence.
–
Afterwards, I walked back to Sunset and started heading home. My chest was starting up again. I could feel the ball getting bigger as I got closer to home. I lit another cigarette, thinking that would help, but it didn’t do anything. When I got home, I climbed under the linen duvet. I laid there silently next to my wife for a moment. Then she stirred, reached over and grabbed me.
“You’re cold,” she said. “Come here and hold me, honey.”