I was one of those journalists you don't hear about. You know the kind, the one whose name always seems to escape being tied to a headline. Definitely not one of those columnists who get to turn tawdry into sleazy. I'd had a couple of good scores. Remember that big piece a couple of years ago, that old heartthrob that people almost forgot all about, until he got linked to that cute little high school jock? No, I didn't get the scoop, but I proofed it for the guy who did. I was that kind of journalist.

The only thing I had to my name was the cheap furniture in my cheap apartment, an ancient laptop, and my car. It wasn't much, it wasn't anything at all, but it was my life. The problem was that things were tough: my money was almost gone. I'd had to hock whatever I could and it still wasn't enough. My landlord was a nice old queen who I knew I could stall for at least another two months - but my car was another matter. The finance company was getting more and more nasty: if I didn't pay, they'd come and drive it away.

Can you imagine being in LA without a car? It was a cruddy car, but it got me around. I was driving it that Thursday afternoon, going from one paper to another, trying to get someone to give me something on spec - anything, I needed anything, to keep the repo man away, when the thing sputtered and died. I managed to pull into an alley off Hollywood Boulevard, down where those big old houses haven't been torn down to make way for cheap apartments like mine. The place was really overgrown, tangled weeds and vines covering the front gates and the tall brick walls all around it, but you could see that at one time it had been fantastic, all deco and style. Now it was just dirt, dust and weeds, but once it had been grand.

I noticed that the huge iron gates were ajar. I don't know why I went in; maybe part of me was curious. It was part of old Hollywood, from the era of roller disco and platform shoes. I wanted to see what was left.

Inside the gates, the place was big - really big. There was a pool, empty of water, but full of leaves. There was a big Cadillac in the drive, once pink and now deep red with rust, sitting on four flat tires. I was just starting to walk up to the big front door when it opened.

"You're late," he said. "He expected you hours ago." When you're older, drag just doesn't work. It's just a man's cross to bear, I guess; put on a wig and you're suddenly five years older. Sometimes it's pathetic, other times it's just tragic. But he ... or she ... was old, maybe in his middle fifties, and yet somehow on him it worked. He wasn't Cher but he could almost have been Bette Davis. He wore curls as red as that rusting Cadillac, a simple white dress, and just enough make-up so he didn't look like he'd been hit by an explosion at Max Factor. His incongruous voice was a deep rumbling bass, with a hint of a German or Hungarian accent and no attempt at femme tones.

I went in. White shag, pink leather sofas, mirrors everywhere. A disco ball in the living room. A huge television on one wall, and on the other, movie posters. Some I'd seen, others I hadn't: Backroom Boys, Disco Dynamite, Roller Leather, and the like.

"This way," Bette said, leading me toward a brass and marble staircase winding upstairs.

"Excuse me," I started to say, "but I just came to-"

Then someone from upstairs called: "Maxine! Maxine! Is that him? Bring him upstairs this instant." Bette turned, looking down at me from the first step, and said. "He is waiting for you. This way."

So went up those stairs, following behind "Maxine", noticing as I walked that the brass was green and the marble deeply cracked.

 

 

He must have been a special hamster, maybe related to some famous hamster, though I couldn't think of any. He was laying there, on a velvet pillow, his little feet stiff in the air.

It took a few minutes to get it straightened out. No, I hadn't come from the vet; no I hadn't come to take the little creature away. I was just in the neighborhood when my car broke down, and I just wanted to use the phone.

I answered his questions, trying not to stare. I knew him from somewhere. The moment Bette brought me upstairs, opening the door to the big master suite and ushering me in with a gravelly "He's here," I realized that something about him was familiar ... but from where?

He was handsome. There was no denying that. Standing by the huge round bed surrounded by gold-veined mirrors and floodlights, I was instantly struck by his beauty. It had faded, certainly; skin that had once been clean and smooth was now rugged and deeply tanned, a body that had once been strong and broad-shouldered was now stooped and softer. "Well, what are you doing here then if you're not going to take little Manuel away?"

His voice was marvelous, deep and rich with a purr that reached down and tugged at me. It was another piece of the puzzle, another clue to who this man was, but my mind was still not putting it together.

"I was just in the neighborhood. My car broke down. I just came to use the phone."

"The phone?" he said, that powerful voice slipping into a glass-breaking screech that made me wince. "You came into MY house, disturbed me, over the PHONE?" Without waiting for my response, he turned and bellowed to Maxine, standing in the doorway. "Show this gentleman out."

Then it hit me. As Maxine reached for my arm, I turned and blurted it straight out, without a clue in the world where it was going to lead me, what was going to become of it: "You're Norman Desmond. You used to be in porno. You used to be big."

"I AM big," he said, his voice ringing with injured pride, thundering with a vigor that defied the stooped shoulders. "It's PORNO that got small."