Los Angeles and the Sunset Kid

Chapter 1: Ghosts and Shit

Optional soundtrack: Father John Misty — Nancy From Now On

Roxy Sunset’s cell phone chimed — she silenced it, making a face at the number appearing on its screen. She had a hole in her head where the drugs had burned her, shot directly through her nostril the night before. She glanced at the body beside her and admired the way the morning light caressed the smooth shape of his ass, and forgot about the text message she had just received.

She briefly drifted off to sleep, or to reverie — it was still difficult to discern what was real and what was not — and fragments of last night’s trangressions drifted through her mind like a kaleidoscope. They had both been rolling hard, but she’d been rolling harder. She had clutched him to her, trying to push him deeper inside, hoping the heat of sex would melt their skin so she could absorb him. When he orgasmed, she climaxed with him, and she wondered with a sigh if cliff shores miss the pounding of the waves at low tide.

She woke with a start when her cell phone rang again, and she turned the thing off completely. She finally climbed out of bed, barefoot and naked, and dust and dirt stuck to the soles of her feet as she padded down the long hallway typical of older San Francisco apartments. She showered, tying up her pink hair so it wouldn’t get wet, and the hot water made her skin feel electric even if it did nothing for her hangover. She couldn’t wait for a cigarette and a cup of coffee.

Roxy Sunset sat on the edge of the bed, wrapped in a towel, turning her cell phone over in her hand. She looked again to his body, deep with day-after slumber, and she smiled when she noticed the series of tiny red halfmoon marks on his back and arms. He would think of her when the wounds stung in the shower. Roxy Sunset lit a half-smoked joint and got dressed.

On her way out, she pocketed the rest of his drugs, and lingered in the doorway to drink him in one last time. He’d been a fine catch — a boy she’d eyed across the bar — and he’d been loaded. Roxy Sunset couldn’t remember his name, but she was sure he wouldn’t forget hers.

Her cell phone rang again as she was making her way to the BART station. After a bummed cigarette and a cup of coffee, she felt a little better, but not good enough to answer the call. She needed a beer or else her headache might never subside.

On BART a man smiled at her and Roxy Sunset smirked — it was probably the most action he’d seen in a while. He asked her what her name was, licking his lips as he did, and she said, “My name is Roxy Sunset.”

“That isn’t your real name,” he said, pressing closer. Roxy steadied herself as the train changed speeds. She smiled deeper, putting a hand on his hip. Yeah, she could tell he liked that.

“You’re right, it’s not,” she said, showing her teeth in a grinning snarl, “But you don’t want to know my real name. You don’t want to know anything about me.”

“Aw now, that’s not true,” he said, his eyes crawling up and down her body. Roxy hooked his pants pocket with a finger and tasted her cigarette on her breath as she said,

“If there’s something you want you should ask for it.”

He was momentarily speechless, but as Roxy Sunset watched the fumbling words gather in his eyes, the train came to a halt and the car doors peeled open. She slipped away and he said something, but the doors closed behind her and the train screamed down the tracks into darkness.

Back above ground she opened his wallet. She shuffled through his credit cards and found an expired condom. She also found a twenty dollar bill and a dime bag of weed, which seemed sort of quaint. She tossed all of it into a trash can except for the drugs and the cash. She pocketed the baggie, bought a pack of smokes with the twenty, and gave the change to a homeless dude.

When her phone rang again, Roxy answered it, anxiously tapping away the ash of her cigarette.

“What do you want? I’m busy you know.”

“Oh, no doubt about that.” He said some other things, but the phone cut out, and the only words Roxy heard clearly were, “… Los Angeles.”

“Wait wait — what about LA?”

“There’s a job down there. A big one. Two hundred bicycles and we’ve got a man paying us a ton to get his carbon frame back.” The connection was very clear now.

Roxy’s heart fluttered. She thought, “These goddamn cigarettes,” and put hers out. Then she said, “No, I won’t do it. I ain’t going to Los Angeles.”

“You’re the only one who can do this, Roxy. I’m willing to give you half of the money upfront. That’s how much we need you on the case.”

She didn’t want to, but she asked, “And how much is that?”

“One hundred thousand.”

Roxy’s heart skipped another beat and she coughed. “Who the hell is paying you that much for a bike? Is it the bike of god, Hex? It’s got god’s ball sweat on the seat? Is it Lance Armstrong’s bike?”

“That’s confidential at the moment, Roxy.”

She coughed again, a rasping, dry cough, and pulled out her pack of smokes, dangling them over a trash can.

“That’s a lot of money, Hex.”

“So you’ll go?”

“No. And don’t call me again.” She hung up and instead of throwing her cigarettes away, she lit one and puffed as if her life depended on it.

Because maybe her life did depend on it. She told herself she didn’t need the money, even as her head unwound with lavish fantasies of renting an apartment along the Venice Boardwalk, spending sun-soaked blue-sky days on its rooftop sinking into a beach chair and watching the palm trees move as if they were under water. She could already feel her skin aching for the uncompromising sunshine of Southern California. This time of year would be perfect.

But there were too many ghosts on the Sunset Strip, as well as on the floor of the heat stroke valley, where police had discovered Roxy’s entire family dead in her parents’ home. No clues to the mystery of their deaths — just dead and sitting around the living room engaged in a wordless conversation. If she went to Los Angeles, their graves would call to her, and she hadn’t even gone to their funerals, so Roxy Sunset certainly wasn’t about to begin mourning now.

Los Angeles and the Sunset Kid is a ten part novella, so stay tuned.