O l i v e r B e n j a m i n
“Oh, no. I’m not going anywhere. I now own ninety-five percent
of this apartment. And since I’ve got controlling interest, I’ve decided
that your five percent is the balcony. So why don’t you go drag your
ass out there and—Hey! What do you think you’re doing? Let me
down, Lemon!”
Deaf Lemon had hoisted her over his shoulder and was at that
moment marching her out through the sliding-glass door, onto the
balcony of their spacious Hollywood Hills apartment. “Just to show
there’s no hard feelings,” he said, “I’ve decided to let you share
my
balcony with me. Young girl like you needs her fresh air, after all.”
Lemon carefully put the struggling Melinda down onto the tiled floor.
“There you go, doll. Now I’m gonna go for a walk, and when I get
back, maybe I’ll decide to unlock
my
sliding-glass door and let you
back in! That is, if I decide to come home. Ha ha! Hey! Nice view,
huh?”
The thick glass door muffled Melinda’s threats and curses, which
were of no concern to Deaf Lemon, since he was deaf, and at that
moment didn’t care much to look at her. He slid into his Technicolor
blazer and lumbered out of the apartment into a smoggy, starless
Hollywood night in which he would only be one of many stars to have
fallen under the curse of polluted expectations.
As is commonly understood in modern astronomy, the sky we gaze at
is an illusion. In all probability, most of the celestial bodies that we
think we are looking at have already died in the duration it took for
their light to reach earth. Therefore, most stars are consigned to
history before we even see them for the first time. Hollywood knew
the feeling, its streets littered with actors-cum-waiters and
musicians-cum-street people who made television pilots or movies or
debut albums that died before even reaching distribution. Deaf
Lemon knew these people well; he used to be among them.
And also:
Junkies and pushers and pimps and prostitutes. Dope
fiends, derelicts, dreamers and drunks. Gambling bet-wagers and
gang-banging teenagers. Stashing dead tourists in leather-lined
trunks.
Deaf Lemon had immortalized them in that, one of his songs. It
was entitled: “Home Is Where the Heartbreak Is.”
They were there too. He noticed them milling about as he strolled
carelessly down Hollywood Boulevard. Each of them a lost soul
crying to be found. And in the meantime, acquiring a karmic debt so
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