by Jim Berg

Howard Smalley had a bad habit
he fell on the spike nightly
He danced with angels
and swung with demons
He knew the truth, and it set him free
on the spike

Sally Swanson was filled with the spirit
she sucked up a hot spoon
Blissful contentment and divine intervention
were hers to be had
at the top of a candle
in the hot spoon

They come to God’s table
spike and spoon in hand
to drink of the blood and
eat of the flesh
so that tomorrow they will be pure
to commit their crimes anew

JAB

We will all meet in hell.
It’s just a matter of who
gets there first.

Shorty

The names have been changed to protect the… well, the names have been changed anyway.

Life on the edge where you can smell the presence of death or things death-like. How many have been there? Does everybody at some time in their life probe the edges of existence, near the abyss? Many people do, and many don’t make it back. Many get stuck on the loose banks, spend the rest of their lives struggling to get out, and just end up expending vast amounts of energy scrambling up the bank, only to have the earth give way underneath. Some give up trying, sit back, and slide down into the abyss of addiction, prostitution, crime, and desperation.

The Western Village Hotel on Magnolia Boulevard is one stop along the way. It’s a hotel that offers nightly, weekly, and monthly rates. This hotel caters primarily to a transient clientele, and not the kind of transients more commonly referred to as tourists.

I spent a couple hours on a Friday night sitting on the step in front of the hotel, and this is what I saw.

Sam can be seen pacing up and down Magnolia in front of the hotel just about any time day or night. He walks with his head tilted down slightly, but his eyes are up, looking everywhere, shifting, constantly aware, constantly looking. It’s a scowling posture. He’s a broker. A seller. A pimp. An opportunity criminal. He doesn’t make elaborate plans, he just takes advantage of what comes along. He paces in front of the hotel like he’s always waiting for something or someone. He looks like a busy man. I suppose an opportunist is always busy, waiting for that next deal that can come from anywhere.

His current ticket is Laurie. She’s an addict. She’s got the self-worth of a Russian ruble, and is exactly the currency that people like Sam deal in. He keeps her in enough dope to make sure she stays around, which isn’t much since she can’t see clear enough to recognize any choices. Her face is puffy, a result of the booze and drugs and an occasional beating. When I met her, she had a black right eye and a small cut under her left. She was drunk and apologized for it.

Tonight she was out with Michael, who provided her with booze. He pulled up in front of the hotel, dropped her off, exchanged a few words with Sarah, who was waiting for a ride, then took off again. Laurie was talking to Sarah when Sam came out. He was obviously angry with Laurie and took her down the street by the arm. I was afraid it might get ugly, or, shall I say, uglier, but he just browbeat her for being drunk when rent had to be paid. She was afraid of him, and he knew it, which is perfectly satisfying to his kind. He went back into the hotel, grumbling under his breath about the pathetic drunk, while she went to work, hitchhiking on Magnolia Boulevard at 10pm.

She got picked up at least twice in an hour and made at least enough to pay the nightly rate of the hotel. Of course that’s not enough to satisfy Sam, so she keeps it up for a couple more hours. She’s a criminal by the law’s definition, but she looks more like a victim.

Not everyone on Magnoloa Boulevard in front of the hotel is there engaging in illicit trade. Others, not unlike myself, are there just watching the comings and goings of other characters in this lowly drama. One thing that can be said for this street life is that it certainly isn’t dull. When one has little else going in life, one can always get out there and scare up a little excitement or drama.

One of the spectators is a 55-plus gentleman called Shorty. Wearing a T-shirt, jogging shorts, and sandals, with his long gray hair tied in a pony-tall, he hangs out, chatting with players and spectators, smoking a cigarette.

“You look bored,” I said.

“Yeah, it’s a slow night tonight,” he said. “Ain’t nothin’ worth a damn on the television. Got tired of watchin’ porno. The damn tapes got lines runnin’ through it. Gonna have to return it to the video store. Can’t watch the damn thing with lines through it.”

“It’s slow tonight?”

“Hell, yeah! This place, used to be hoppin’. Back when I was manager here, there used to be two pool tables and all the vending machines you’d want in the rec room. People would be comin’ and goin’ all night long up and down this street.”

Shorty was manager of the hotel for most of the seventies. He says that when he started, it was primarily a gay hotel, where Hollywood stars would put up their “who-whoos.” Then in the mid-seventies, the Hell’s Angels took up residence in the hotel for a couple years, then left as suddenly as they came. In the beginning of the eighties, ownership of the hotel changed to its current Chinese owners, and Shorty quit soon after and went down the street to manage the Red Rooster bar for about five years. The bar went through a change of ownership, after which Shorty retired.

Shorty says the neighborhood isn’t as bad as it once was. Harmony Avenue, the street that crosses Magnolia near the hotel, used to be known as “Little Tijuana.” Drug dealers on the street would regularly have gunfights across the street and in the alley. Then the Community Redevelopment Agency tore down the dilapidated single-family homes and built apartments, which has moved out the drug dealers.

Although redevelopment has reduced some of the worst problems in the neighborhood, Shorty says that drug dealing has gotten worse overall in the last few years. He blames it on lack of policing.

“They used to patrol this area all the time. And they would arrest people and get them off the street. Nowadays, they don’t do shit. Nowadays these young cops are lazy. They don’t arrest nobody ’cause they don’t wanna do the paperwork. They don’t wanna take the time”

Out of fairness to the LAPD, it should be noted that Los Angeles has the smallest number of police officers per capita of any major city in the country —- a number that has been dropping for many years. Even the police have not been immune from lack of public financial responsibility or commitment.

An old Toyota Celica screeches to a stop in front of the hotel, bouncing off the curb. Michael gets out of the car, a little excited, and says, “I just got stabbed.”

There’s a small stain on his shirt, but he doesn’t look like someone who’s been stabbed. He tells Sarah and Shorty what happened like a kid who just came out of the circus. Shorty later tells me that he got stabbed by a gangmember in a drug deal up on Denny Avenue. Obviously it wasn’t serious, but it certainly added a touch of excitement to an otherwise dull Friday night. Meanwhile, Laurie catches another “ride” and Sam continues pacing, with his shifty-eyed scowl, looking for an opportunity on Magnolia Boulevard.