I am living in a hotel in Santa Monica because I just got a job on the 3rd St. Promenade. I had the strangest dream last night, and I had to call someone which is why I'm talking to Baby Cakes. She's living down in Long Beach and it somehow comforts me to know that we're both watching the sun come up over the mountains shining out on the Pacific Ocean like a David Hockney print. She's asking me about the dream again, "So it was just like a Twin Peaks episode?" I say, "Yeah, except no dwarves or little people or whatever, but I was in a room with thick carpet and red velvet curtains, and in the middle of the room sitting on a sofa was my Nana, my dad's mom, and she was motioning me to come forward and sitting next to her was an old woman with her back to me and when I got closer, Nana slowly turned the old woman around and it was my Granny, my mother's mother." She's saying, "What's so weird about that?"
And I'm just staring out the window, back in the David Hockney print but nothing will come into focus except the faded yellow of the diving board, the inky water broken by the white splash, the bleached peach of the stucco. I'm trying to think how to explain to Baby Cakes why this dream is so weird and all I can say is something like, "Because Nana is my spirit guide, I know that now, and I never knew Granny growing up on the ranch out near Victorville, she was so sick and they kept her in the hospital, but somehow Nana is trying to tell me they're together on the other side, waiting for me."
I can hear the bubbling of the water bong, the one we bought in Venice Beach last week. I know Baby Cakes is thinking, deeply, profoundly. "I don't have any spirit guides," she says exhaling, "that shit's not fair." I tell her that if she can drive up here before 11 am, we can order breakfast from room service and bill it to Nike and also to hurry up and not forget the bong. Then I'm staring over the tops of the palm trees again, watching some Mexicans kids open the shops on the pier where there are already tourists snapping pictures of the Ferris wheel and the surfers catching swells down below. Nana is telling me, "Not everyone will understand, look how long it took you." I can't help myself and I’m answering her out loud, "You're not the revelation here Nana, Granny is, because of course I'd expect you to cross over, but Granny and I were never close and now you've brought us together, or at least introduced us. It changes everything." I'm listening but she doesn't answer me. All I hear is the hum of the air-conditioner on the 23rd floor of the Hotel Majestic de Santa Monica and it makes my want a hot cup of coffee brought to my door by one of those cute Brazilian boys who works in housekeeping. I hope she remembers the bong.
Rolling back and forth on the hotel sheets and down comforter makes me feel like I'm floating on clouds. I'm rolling over to look at the breakfast menu and I notice how similar the curtains in my hotel room look to the curtains in my dream. "Order the Colombian coffee, migas," I can hear Nana whispering in my ear, "and some blood orange juice for Baby Cakes so she'll have something to splash her vodka in." I'm dialing 3009 for room service and can't believe I'm hearing, "Jess sir, Colombian coffee, migas, an orn jess" which I recognize as one of the Brazilians who parked my car last night. She better remember the bong, I'm thinking and then I'm saying "Come quickly" which is probably my subconscious slipping and he's saying "Jess sir, room 2302, jess sir quickly." He's probably expecting a tip, and I'm probably going to give him a very nice tip no matter when the coffee gets here. I'm rolling the down comforter around me, then I stand up like a Greek statue and stare out at the ocean, wondering if I still have the David Hockney print in storage.
Letting the comforter slide down and drop to the floor, I'm guessing that yes, I do still have the Hockney print in storage and that no, I would remember selling it, or lending to someone. I'm wondering who I would like enough to allow them to borrow "A Bigger Splash." I can't imagine that Dustin would like it, and besides his boyfriend is a Leather Daddy from Calabasas and most of their art ranges from Tom of Finland to MC Escher prints, so no, I don't think they'd have it.
I'm also wondering where my iPod is and I fall back into the king sized bed and roll over and feel around by the Jonathan Adler nightstand and I'm not at all surprised when I finger an earbud and the pull up the steel blue mp3 player because I'm remembering that I was listening to that Japanese girl, Utada, last night as I was falling asleep. I'm sitting up and unplugging the ear buds, tossing them into the drawer of the nightstand, which is only open a crack and one ear bud drops in but the other is swinging down and almost touching the floor. The swinging earbud is practically hypnotizing me and I can hear Nana saying, "Put on that Danni Minogue song we danced to at the Abbey, the one they were playing after that producer from TelePictures bought you that Goldeschlager." I'm still scrolling through my playlists trying to find "I Begin to Wonder" but now I hear the knocking at the door. Either the Brazilian with coffee or Baby Cakes with the bong, I hope.
Pulling up my Nike wind-resistant sweatpants, even though there's no wind in my hotel room except from that sad vent in the ceiling, I grab a gray ribbed tank top off the floor and as soon as I put it on I realize it's on backwards, and I'm opening the door and the Brazilian's cologne is mixing with the smell of fresh brewed Colombian coffee and all I can do is turn and look at the chairs by the window and then he's pushing the cart across the sisal rug and setting the tray on the table. Reaching into my pocket and pretending to look for a cash tip I push my morning manhood down while walking over to sign the room-service bill. "Nike pays again?" I hear him say and we both laugh while I'm grabbing some crumpled bills out of the nightstand drawer causing the dangling earbuds to fall to the floor. "Yes, more Nike money" is all I say and I jam the bills into the palm of his hand harder than I mean to and he's not smiling anymore. "Obrigado" stammers out of my mouth and he's already leaving but I can smell his cologne so I stand in the doorway thinking how good the hot coffee will taste with the Blueberry Frost Baby Cakes is bringing and I hope she remembers the bong. And who has my Hockney print?
I'm about to shut the door behind me and I hear the ping of the elevator, and as the Brazilian Gustavo gets on, I hear Baby Cakes saying, "The 405 was so messed up, but I got here as soon as I could." I hate when people say that, because people just say that now, “the 405 was so messed up” even when the didn’t take the 405, it’s just an excuse. I'm still wondering how Baby Cakes got here so quick and I rotate my hands in a circle like a Pacific Coast Highway Cop and motion her into the room as she almost trips over the down comforter piled at the foot of the bed. "You're just in time for coffee" I say, "Did you see Gustavo in the elevator?"
She ignores me and we’re both sitting there staring at each other, while she’s rummaging around in her shoulder bag and pulls out the bong. I’m flipping our coffee mugs over and placing them on top of the Hotel Majestic de Santa Monica paper doily in the center of the saucer. Baby Cakes balances the bong on the floor. I rip the raw sugar packet open and pour them into our cups. She slides her finger along the Ziploc of the baggie pulled from her shoulder bag. I gently pour the cream into each of the cups while she's pinching a tiny bud of the sticky purple stuff. I lift the stainless coffee pot over each cup and watch the dark steaming coffee turn the color of Gustavo's skin. Baby Cakes is tapping the buds down in the bowl. Stirring our cups I watch as she takes a square plastic bottle from her bag filling the base of the bong with Fiji water and just covering the packed bowl. We are still sitting and staring at each other as the two smells mix in our nostrils. Reaching in my pocket, I hand her the lighter with the glowing margarita that I got at El Coyote last time I was there. She takes it, firing up.
Staring over the tops of the palm trees, the shops along the pier are open now, and I can almost imagine seeing Catalina Island, but I probably can't. Baby Cakes is staring down Colorado Blvd, up at the Getty, and out to Malibu. I think she'll probably say something about Santa Barbara, or Michael Jackson's Never Land Ranch, but instead she's asking, "Do you really think you Oprah and Gayle/Gail[spellcheck] are lesbians? I hear Oprah bought a place in Santa Barbara for them to hide out." At least I got the Santa Barbara part right, I say to myself. But since I can't answer her, I take a big gulp of coffee, another rip on the bong. We're both watching the smoke curl up the glass window, making the sunny beach below seem as smoggy as it will be later today if the Santa Ana winds aren’t blowing. "Anyway, that’s only a couple hours north of LA," I say, swiveling around and almost knocking over the bong, "And that's not a very good hiding place for lesbians, especially Oprah-level lesbians."
Baby Cakes had always been a lesbian, but I'd pegged her last lover as a wanna-be-lipstick-lesbain before she ever graduated from San Luis Obispo High School when I’d met her in San Francisco for the Free Tibet concert in Golden Gate Park that year. Baby Cakes was there in her earthy Mission-district lesbian funk, and Shanelle was twirling her hair around her little finger, smoking all my shit, telling me I looked like the Unabomber, and trying to convince people she was a lesbian, but I wasn’t buying it, even them, and I wanted to say, “I told you so” when they broke up and Baby Cakes ended up moving into that little place in Long Beach but I didn’t because that would’ve been mean. But I really did tell her that she wasn’t a lesbian, and that was pretty much the nature of our relationship, with me warning her and her not taking my advice and then I have to come in and pick up the pieces. Like with Shanelle.
But this was different, and I’d called Baby Cakes, and I’d been the weak one, I’d been the one who needed help, a shoulder to lean on, a sympathetic ear, whatever you call it. And now we’re sitting here drinking Colombian Coffee, eating migas, contemplating Blueberry Purple Frost and I’m still thinking about the Hockney print, and now Shanelle, and yes, I’m still wondering who would really care about Oprah, I mean, have you ever actually been to Santa Barbara? But I called Baby Cakes and she came and now I’m feeling social pressure to be a good host, because even though I want to talk, need to talk, I can barely talk, or at least I can barely talk about that, about what I should be talking about, because I didn’t really think Baby Cakes would drive up here, I just thought we’d talk on the phone until I felt better, but then there was the Blueberry Purple Frost and then I said room service and how did she get here so fast, and now I’m trying to think what we’re going to do the rest of the day. So I don’t have to talk about it.
“You’re a sinner but you told me you’re a saint…” I’m singing now “everyday it’s the same thing, different faces, no names, places I’ve never been before…and I begin to wonder” and I’m spinning the wheel on the my iPod listening to the clicks of all the songs I’ve downloaded but will never listen to more than once or twice, now slowly clicking past He’s the Greatest Dancer (Shapeshifter Mix), Hey (So What), For the Record, Perfection (Turn Me Upside Down), Push, Mystified, I Don’t Wanna Lose This Feeling, Who Do You Love Now, Put the Needle On It (Dirty Hands Remix) finally stopping on I Begin To Wonder. Sliding the iPod back into the base of two black and silver speakers Danni Minogue is singing this time “Every day it’s the same thing, different faces no names, places I’ve never been before. And I-ee-I begin to wonder..don’t cha know it’s really making me crazy.”
Picking up the comforter, I am Danni now, the wind machine blowing my hair like the video on PinkIsTheNewBlog and I’m carefully mouthing the slow part of the song to Baby Cakes, “Before I was over you, really over you…no time to think, I lost my mind, no I’m not over you…everyday it’s the same thing, different faces no names, places I’ve never been before.” Taking a deep pull on the bong, Baby Cakes is now holding it out to me, like a microphone stand careful not to let the water fill the hot bowl on the front, and I’m letting the comforter slide down my shoulders, and I’m leaning over to finish the last of the Blueberry Frost, inhaling deeply, truly, and she’s pulling my tank top off over my head and saying, “backward” and I’m falling into the comforter on the floor. “Walking down the street I call your name,” Danni sings, ”And there were days I went completely blind, no time think and I lost time, and I-ee-I begin to wonder.”
