Illustration by author

East of Fairfax

When I first moved to Los Angeles, someone told me that Hollywood became shady east of Highland. This was a big part of convincing me to move into the apartment I lived in during 2013, 5 blocks west of La Brea, on Sunset just east of Fairfax.

I quickly figured out that actually Fairfax is where it drops off. The restaurants might be expensive over there, but all the crazies who roam east of Highland sleep west of La Brea. The neighborhood looks like Ohio (and subbed in for it in a few slasher films from the 80s), but first thing in the morning you’ll find shit streaking the pavement, and homeless men passed out on the sidewalk.

The last few nights I keep waking up in my ground-floor apartment to hear a homeless guy burping, and vomiting directly outside my window. The first night I stayed awake for hours while he choked and made sounds that made me queasy. I didn’t even close my curtains, instead just looked away from the window and hoped he wouldn’t see any movement. He emptied his stomach for hours, his disease covered the lawn.

The next morning the gardeners cleaned it up, I closed my curtains, moved all my possessions away from the glass, but hoped that would be it. That night I heard the same shuffling, near the same time — about 1 am — and almost the same set of noises started to waft up from below my window. This time I fell asleep pretty quickly, the only thing keeping me awake was my anger at being stupid enough to have signed a lease for a place east of Fairfax.

This same ritual played out the rest of the week. Every night the poor sod shuffled up at 1am, gave two horrible burps, threw up, then started to fart and moan. I tried soundproofing, the gardeners cleaned up most of the evidence, and I spent my days surfing rental websites.

That Thursday, I smoked too much outside a dive bar in Sherman Oaks, and after a careful drive home, passed out at 10pm, my only thought “please let the bum have found a different yard”

Around 12:30, I wake up to a SMASH, followed by a screech, a car door swing open, and the sounds of my upstairs neighbors running outside. I hear from directly outside; nearly the same place as my nocturnal friend, a woman start to cry. I look out the window and see a skinny blonde girl with too much hair product outside of a jumbled mess of metal not 20 feet from me.

I throw on my pants, spend a second choosing a shirt (I go with a white t-shirt, like one I should have been wearing in bed), and run outside. I’m maybe 4th in line, the whole neighborhood seems to be outside.

“Are you okay?” the first one, my next door neighbor who has loud sex every morning, asks. The woman nods, she looks shocked.

“Are you okay?” the second one, my upstairs neighbor who has loud sex every night asks. She gives an okay.

“Are you okay?” someone asks whose sex life I don’t know. She says yes, and looks around. There are about twenty people at this point, all in different levels of undress.

“Are you…” it’s my turn. “…insured?” I finally get out. She nods, upstairs nightsex neighbor gives me a dirty look. “I saw everything, that was awful” he goes.

“Are you okay?” It’s the next person in line. I drift back to the door, and lamely go back inside. There are too many people for me to do anything. I take off my clothes and lay in bed. More people come and ask her if she’s okay. She starts acting like they’re asking her how she is “I’m fine.” “Thanks.” “I don’t know what happened!”

A door swings open, and there’s a silence as all the people turn and look at a new presence.

“WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO MY JEEP?” A man’s voice roars out, I picture him in a greasy wife-beater with three kids behind him. “MY JEEP WAS PARKED!”

“Don’t worry, everything’s being taken care of,” comes the soothing voice of morning sex.

“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?” The guy yells out.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t even — “ the girl starts. Upstairs sex starts to talk over her, and say it’s “no one’s fault, and the cops are on their way.”

Archie Bunker-in-my-mind takes a deep breath. “My JEEP,” he lets out, the air leaving his lungs. There’s a loud sigh.

“ARE… you okay?” he finally asks, then storms back inside.

The crowd starts to dissipate, and after a while, red lights flash on my window. The cops, surprisingly quietly get statements, it sounds like they’re mumbling, so all I can hear is the other side of it from upstairs and morning sex neighbors, along with the girl’s tears.

I lay in bed just kind of weirded out. I’m already unpleasantly sobered up, and just feel dehydrated and empty after the weed. I wonder what’ll happen to the girl. I wonder about the guy and his jeep, especially since they didn’t take his statement (all about this I heard was morning sex go “he went back inside. I’m not sure which building”).

The tow truck beeps and takes away the mangled mess towards some autoshop on Fairfax, to the west where I can’t help but feel like it’s quieter, too quie.. I lay in the darkness and quiet, just feeling like a car hit me, or at any moment the tow truck will take me away.

Then, I hear a familiar shuffle outside my window. There’s a pause, as if the figure is looking at the wrecked metal, and trying to process it. Then, there’s a burp, a cough, and the most horrible sounding retching sound you’ll ever hear.

I smile, curl up in my blanket, and drift off to sleep.