His name wasn’t Gianni, but that’s what everyone called him.
His real name was Polish and hard to pronounce. He’d picked Gianni from the label of a jacket a client had loaned him. The jacket and the client were both long lost.
The girls called him “Hollywood” when he worked Highland with them, at the corner by the Donut Time. Computers were taking all the work off the streets but Highland was a show that had to be seen live. The trans on that corner competed for the attention of the traffic orbiting the block. You couldn’t get that on computer.
Gianni didn’t much care for computers and all their English and reading. He was all about the show. Gianni was a hard worker with a strong back. He was quick enough to get out of Poland and evade immigration in America. But in Hollywood, no one cared about his mind or his work ethic.
He lived in Florida when he first arrived in the states. It was a place that was easier to be for people who weren’t supposed to be here. He’d been Derek then — not his name, but closer to the truth. He got a job making plastic milk jugs. He laughed every time the little pellets blew into identical gallon bubbles, until the sameness dulled his wonder. He learned English from the dozen Cuban refugees he shared a motel room with, sleeping in shifts.
In Florida, Gianni met his true love.
Theirs was an enduring romance. It weathered jail and flight and life on the streets. It made Gianni’s life worth living and a living hell. It was the reason he got up in the morning and stayed up all night. It was what he lived for and it made him long for death.
He’d never had much of a taste for wine. He’d take a beer every now and then, when it was hot and he was thirsty. He sniffed cocaine – it was Florida, after all – but he found more fun and comfort in a shot of vodka. But the first time he smoked the little cocaine rocks, he knew it was love.
His love was deep but cocaine was a harsh and constant mistress. The job at the bottle plant didn’t pay enough to keep the romance alive and the hours kept them apart too long. He tried selling it, but couldn’t bear to part with the rocks once he had them in hand. He tried stealing to repay those he owed for all he’d smoke before he could sell it. But when he got money, he just bought more rock and smoked that, too. That’s how love works. You just want more.
Jail saved him from the people who were trying to collect. After a third visit to prison threatened to become permanent, Derek changed his address and then his name. The stolen car got him to the one place in America everyone in the world knows, Hollywood.
It was there that Gianni discovered his true talent.
He sold the car, got a room in a motel on Sunset Boulevard and went in search of Hollywood. Gianni couldn’t find it. There was a big sign on a hillside and stars on the sidewalk for a couple of blocks but that was about it. There were no movie stars or studios; no such thing as Hollywood. But there was lots of rock. His money and his motel room were soon gone.
Walking the sleepy streets to keep warm late at night, he chanced upon the activity at the corner of Highland Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard. The girls there weren’t the prettiest he’d seen but they seemed willing.
“Hey bonitaful,” he said, dragging his toes and giving it his best walk. “Soy Derek.”
“Mmm, mm, mijo,” the raven haired beauty said, arching a painted brow at him. “I’m Ruby. You workin’ or playin’?”
“Always ready to play,” Gianni answered in his thick accent, cocking his head to the side and grabbing himself. “You got game?”
“You are a mess,” Ruby answered laughing and folding her arms. “You got cash?”
“I don’t pay to play,” Gianni said, raising his hands.
“Then you on the wrong corner,” a nearby dark skinned beauty snorted.
All the girls within hearing laughed, Gianni knew, at him.
In need of courage, he ducked down the dark street that ran behind the check cashing place and the sandwich shop in the corner strip center. The center’s parking lot, like a little street, opened onto both Highland and Santa Monica. It was repurposed after closing and almost as busy as both of the major thoroughfares it adjoined. Donut Time lit up the corner like a beacon, brightly lit and open all night. It was part of the center but free standing. The lights, the sugar and the coffee kept the corner’s nighttime traffic lively in the parking lot that surrounded the shop.
Behind Chex4Cash, Gianni found an alley doorway where he could smoke up the nerve to go back and talk to Ruby. He was more in need of sleep than bravery and nodded out with the glass pipe still in his lips.
He awoke to see his Latin love talking to a man in a deep blue BMW sedan. Hidden in the shadows, Gianni watched as the business transaction played out.
“Ohhh, Papi, I make you feel so good,” Ruby cooed, pressing her breasts against the car’s partly rolled down window.
“Let me see,” the beamer’s lone passenger asked, hoarsely.
“Bad boy,” Ruby said, wagging a finger. With a deft tug at the front of the sequined top, a generous brown breast spilled out, its nipple like dark chocolate. “You like?”
“Not that,” the driver said, gesturing lower.
“Oh, very bad boy,” Ruby laughed, her voice deep and rich.
Gianni pressed the heel of his hand against the front of his jeans. He watched from the darkness as Ruby raised the front of her short skirt.
The guy in the car reached out to touch the front of Ruby’s panties.
“Unh, uh, uh,” Ruby teased, stepping back. “No touching, Papi. Not yet.”
“Then let me see it.”
“Twenty.”
“To see it?” the man demanded with a short curt laugh. “Forget it.”
The sound of the electric motor whirring filled the alley as the car window slowly rose.
“Okay, okay, Papi,” Ruby said with a wave. “A little preview.”
The motor’s whine fell silent.
Gianni could no longer feel the chill of the night that enveloped him.
A thumb in the waistband, the panties came down and Ruby’s secret was out. So was her cock.
Gianni’s laughter broke up the little scene. The car sped away as Ruby tucked herself away.
“Quien? Who’s there?” Ruby demanded. The glare from the street light flashed off the blade she wielded.
“Lo siento, chico,” Gianni said, hands raised, emerging into the light.
The other girls came running in answer to Ruby’s shouts.
“They pay for that?” Gianni asked, still laughing.
“Plenty,” Ruby said, emboldened by the little mob behind her.
“How much for this?” His pants puddled around his ankles.
“Ay, dios mio!” Ruby screamed, dropping her razor. “Que bonito!”
“We could all retire if you charge by the inch for that thing,” Ruby’s friend shrieked.
They shared a laugh. The girls treated Gianni to donuts and coffee. He learned his new trade from them quickly and soon found that there were more and better customers a few blocks west. He hadn’t retired, but he’d made enough to keep his romance alive.
Time passed. He couldn’t say how much. Get some money, buy some rock, smoke the rock, get some more money. It was hard to count the days when they were all the same. Internet changed Gianni’s business but not much else. Each rock seemed harder to come by than the last. His street corner show was available on line. People could order in what they used to cruise the streets to find.
His pockets were empty but there was a rock under his tongue. He stood in the car port at Sweetzer Court, watching through the gate. The manager, Rudolph, took the kid into his apartment. Gianni snickered at the old man fluttering around the kid like a woman, he thought. He’d seen those tea party manners gone like smoke in the wind when he’d crossed the building manager in the past.
Gianni wasn’t taking any chances. He waited until they were out of sight, then darted across the courtyard. He hugged the walls. Careful not to be seen, Gianni made his way along the gallery to the windows of one of the ground level apartments. Pressing his talent against the glass like he’d seen Ruby do that long ago night, he lowered the front of his trousers.
“Hey,” he hissed. “Look what I brought you.”
To be continued . . .
Eric Shaw Quinn 