Landmark

Liliya and Rick greeted Saul from behind the screen door of their Los Feliz apartment. Saul wore his uniform of tight black jeans, converse, and a denim jacket covered with patches — hardcore bands mostly. In spite of the pulverizing late summer heat and his Pabst-gut, he’d walked all the way from his apartment near Gower Gulch.

Liliya (still committed to her punkette thing well into her late thirties) leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. Beneath her thick wall of foundation lay the distrustful countenance of a Russian grandmother. Her husband Rick was a good looking guy with a formidable pompadour; he too was hanging onto a fading look for dear life.

“Come in, honey,” said Liliya. “Everybody else is here already.”

Saul wiped his forehead; it was waxy with sweat and hair product. Parties made him uncomfortable. He’d met the hosts at Flyover Records, the vinyl-only store where he worked at Sunset Junction. Saul had helped Rick find a rare Cramps LP. Turned out they had some friends in common, so when Liliya invited him to a “thing we’re doing at the house,” Saul wasn’t surprised, just anxious. Despite the subtle distinction between having and doing a thing, it sounded like a typical Eastside get-together: an unbearable proposition. Still, with no girlfriend and the day off work, he didn’t refuse. Forced socializing was the only kind that got him out of the house lately.

He entered the living room wearing a half smile he thought made his doughy face look more like Darby Crash. (When anyone asked, Saul claimed he moved to Los Angeles from Eugene, Oregon solely based on his obsession with bands like the Germs and the Screamers.) At the sight of three acquaintances, he relaxed and greeted them with what he felt were appropriate amounts of conviviality: side hug for Suzie, a sturdy blonde in her late-30s who worked at Squaresville on Vermont; full embrace for Rene, who styled hair for reality TV and resembled Joan Jett; finally, a firm handshake for Rene’s boyfriend Al, a tall guy with a goatee who did something involving real estate. Suzie offered him a spot on the vintage couch.

Rick dashed into the kitchen and returned with beer and sodas. Saul sucked in his stomach and attempted to brood like John Doe from X while the other three gabbed glibly about a recent I See Hawks in L.A. show, an Entourage cast member sighting at Home Depot, and the city’s current oppressive heatwave. In the corner, a chunky iPod served up songs from a Link Wray playlist. Pleasant enough, but why wouldn’t the hosts stop pacing?

Without warning it was showtime. Standing in the center of the room, Liliya pulled out a colorful pamphlet with a beaming gray-haired couple on the cover. “So here’s the deal,” she said before explaining that they’d just completed the Landmark Forum and had life-changing insights to share. This introductory spiel came at a pace bordering on manic. Within minutes, the room felt at least ten degrees hotter. Saul pulled his jacket off and wiped his palms on his thighs.

He knew about Landmark. The group was kind of an updated version of est, the seventies celebrity cult of choice. Liliya and Rick, the friendly rockabilly scenesters, had been body snatched; in their place were two glassy-eyed dogma dispensers.

Time crawled as Liliya droned on in labyrinthine Forum-speak. “There’s what you know, what you don’t know, and then there’s what you don’t know you don’t know,” she said obscurely.

Rick punctuated her every other line with a jovial “absolutely” or “exactly” or “I thought it was crazy too,” an amiable Flavor Flav to his wife’s Chuck D. Saul wriggled in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his legs. He tried to catch the eye of another attendee, for some confirmation of the utter bizarreness. All three had plastic smiles.

Oblivious, Liliya advanced aggressively through the indoctrination script. “Sign up for a seminar,” she implored. “Just a weekend. How will you know unless you try?”

Cults were such an LA thing. Saul remembered this guy he knew who fancied himself a punk-rock spiritual guru or some shit. His devotees believed they were members of an edgy, anti-authoritarian movement. Sometimes he came by the record store and tried to act down by talking about obscure 7-inches. The dude gambled, ate McDonalds, and was constantly touting the numerous self-help books he’d written.

Saul thought the whole deal was mostly hippy shit, reheated Eastern principles, but, curious, he attended a New Year’s Eve “intention-setting” ritual. Midway through the interminable ceremony, the congregants passed a collection plate into which he placed a ten dollar bill, before taking seven back as change. Afterwards, a member confronted Saul in the lobby and accused him of stealing from the group. So much for positive intentions.

Back in the living room, Rick was going on about how honest he felt since the Forum, how satisfying his work was since the Forum, how much better he and Liliya understood each other since the Forum. Saul needed a breather. He announced (with as much innocent enthusiasm as he could muster) that he had to take a piss.

Without taking an eye off her captive audience, Liliya pointed a hot pink nail in the direction of the kitchen. “OK, sweetie. It’s right next to the laundry room.”

The light blue bathroom contained a velvet Elvis poster and nautical-themed shower curtain — among other knick-knackery. Saul closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. He examined himself in the mirror: spiky hair, hand-poked knuckle tattoos, perfectly faded Crass t-shirt. Cursing his paunch, but otherwise bolstered by the reflection, he flushed the toilet and ran the faucet for added believability. Right before opening the door, he glared at the mirror like a young Henry Rollins. My war, he thought.

Rene was waiting in the kitchen, also taking a break from the barrage. “What is this, fucking Amway?” Saul whispered, probably too loudly. He didn’t care.

Rene mouthed an exaggerated “I know” and slipped into the bathroom.

Back on the couch, Liliya lasered in on Saul, this time attempting to appeal to his iconoclastic spirit. “I know you’re not a joiner,” she explained, “but this isn’t about being a member of a group. It’s about you. This is a gift to yourself.” Liliya slapped him on the knee for emphasis. He felt his Rollins-resolve slipping away. “Think of what you could do for the music scene, that label you always talk about starting. What’s really stopping you?”

She was right. Most of his co-workers at Flyover had launched bedroom imprints while he drank and pretended not to care about success. Outwardly, he judged their DIY ventures as “a bunch of LA nonsense,” but he envied their stupid, focused passion. Deep down he feared that starting a label — doing anything, really — was too much of a commitment, the first step on the slippery slope to conformity.

Wielding a sign-up clipboard, Rick brought up the rear. “People who do the weekend end up with these incredible realizations about themselves.” Take the flyer, Saul thought. Do the fucking weekend. Anything to get these two to stop. Just do it. What can it hurt?

But then he heard the voice of Rollins.

It’s sad when someone you know

becomes someone you knew.

No way.

Hope is the last thing a person does before they are defeated.

Get

My war

You’re one of them

the fuck

You say that you’re my friend

But you’re one of them

out of here.

“You guys,” he whined. “I, I just can’t right now. I can tell this Forum thing has been great for you both, but I have a lot going on and I mean, look. It’s not a good time. I’m not going to be able to do it. I hope you get it.”

Sam knew he sounded more like a nebbish than a nonconformist. Still, it seemed to work. Disappointed, but acquiescent, Liliya moved on to the remaining guests. Rene and Al stood their ground but Suzie was not so lucky. The hosts cornered her; the promise of broadened economic horizons proved too tempting.

Sensing an opening, the three of them gathered their things and bid hasty goodbyes while Liliya prepped a shellshocked Suzie for her first Landmark weekend.

Outside, Rene and Al walked arm in arm through the thick August heat. Saul trailed behind, hands shoved in jean jacket pockets, adrenaline still pumping from the encounter. The couple invited him for tacos near Vermont which actually sounded pretty good. Standing outside the silver plated truck, the escapees laughed nervously as they ate.

“What the fuck was that?” Saul asked, picking a piece of cilantro from between his teeth.

Rene rolled her eyes. “I’ve been to that kind of thing before. When I was a kid. My mom was all mixed up in some cult shit. They cleaned her out.” She looked down at the street, black shag falling forward, covering her face.

Saul wished he could leave it alone, forget the whole afternoon, discuss the Dodgers, the weather, anything. But he felt it starting, the twin sparks of mutual disapproval and righteous indignation which fueled the best shit talking sessions.

“Did you see their eyes?” Saul asked, milking the disbelief out of every syllable. “There is nothing more LA than that shit. A self-help cult, what a cliche.”

Al played devil’s advocate. “I don’t know? They looked super happy.”

Saul added some hot sauce to his second taco; this place was a little bland. “Seekers. City is made of them,” he said between bites. “They come to LA vulnerable and ambitious. What do you expect?”

The sun was starting to come down, clouds turning pink in the hazy sky. It had been a long afternoon. Rene jumped to Rick’s defense. “What about you, Saul? Isn’t record collecting kind of a cult? You and your buddies at the store get pretty pious about your opinions.”

“But we’re not proselytizing.”

“OK, you’re elitists, not cultists,” Rene replied with unconcealed bile. She looked to Al and motioned that it was time to go. They said their goodbyes and walked in the opposite direction. Saul decided to float around Los Feliz for a bit. Rene was right, he thought. He’d been an asshole.

The evening Santa Ana winds brought new energy to his step as he walked up Sunset. He took a left on L. Ron Hubbard Blvd. and approached one of the ominous Scientology buildings. Los Angeles held many mysteries for Saul when he first arrived from Eugene, none as baffling as the far-reaching tentacles of Scientology, whose tacky trappings coated the city.

He peered into a window display, straining to read a testimonial from jazz fusion legend Chick Corea. His gobbledygook sounded just like Liliya and Rick. Saul observed a besuited cluster gathered around a doorway, all smoking cigarettes: Scientology’s worker bees. He laughed. Had to be careful in this city; you could get snatched up anywhere.

Hollywood night fell. He passed Normandie and kept going. Not ready to head home yet, he decided he would overshoot his apartment. If he kept this pace he might even make it to Amoeba before they closed to poke through the new arrivals. Saul imagined he was the last holdout in a city populated entirely by seekers. He pictured Rollins walking beside him, whispering in his ear:

To not be like your friends.

To be yourself.

To cut yourself out of stone.

Lyrics to Black Flag’s “My War” by Chuck Dukowski

Other quotes by Henry Rollins