Part 1 (2/2)

”You did say something funny,” I said. ”Just not right away.”

”Performance anxiety.”

”So about this ghost...” Kevin said, in a tone that was only half-serious. ”Is that why the previous tenant left?”

”Sort of. The ghost murdered her. That actually was like that season of American Horror Story.” But Gina was smiling when she said this, so I knew she was joking. ”The truth is, I don't think there's a single hotel or apartment in all of Los Angeles that isn't supposedly haunted by the ghost of someone who killed themselves after their dreams were crushed. Trust me on this, I've lived in a lot of old buildings.”

I smiled again. At the same time, I looked at Gina, trying to guess her age. Mid-forties, maybe?

”Anyway,” she said, turning to go. ”Nice to meet you guys.”

Once we'd showered and dressed, it was late afternoon, so we decided to walk some place for dinner. We'd been in town two full days, but we'd been inside almost the whole time. We'd barely even seen our own neighborhood.

We stepped out onto the sidewalk, into the city, all fresh-faced and naive.

Our apartment was halfway up a hill. Behind us, a half block away, was the Hollywood Freeway, which I would soon learn is also called the 101, but never on the same sign. In other words, the freeway has two different names, but the city doesn't bother to tell you - you're somehow just expected to know. Likewise, I'd eventually learn that the Arroyo Seco Parkway is also called the 110, and sometimes the Pasadena Freeway, but no one ever tells you that either.

Meanwhile, in front of us, Los Angeles stretched out forever. That's the way it looked anyway: this endless expanse of city that rolled on and on, eventually disappearing into the smoggy brown smear of eternity. Closer in, down below us, you could make out the buildings and streets and palm trees, but farther on, all the concrete started to sort of blur together, making the city look like this vast plane of jagged gravel. Los Angeles actually has a pretty impressive downtown to the southeast of where we were, with skysc.r.a.pers and everything, and there are these other cl.u.s.ters of skysc.r.a.pers on the horizon too, but none of them looked all that impressive from here, because everything was so spread out, and even the tall buildings got lost in the expanse and the smog.

We headed down the hill, toward the main drag. We pa.s.sed more apartment buildings like our own, some nicer than ours, but most even dumpier. Los Angeles smelled totally different from Seattle: a weird mix of rubber, asphalt, and car exhaust that would be completely unbearable without the hint of salt from the sea, and the honeysuckle and jasmine from the Hollywood Hills behind us.

One street over, a tall, cylindrical building rose up over the rooftops.

”Oh!” I said. ”The Capitol Records Tower! You know, from the opening scene in Hanc.o.c.k, when Will Smith impales the robbers' car on the spire on top?”

Kevin smiled, totally humoring me.

I should get this out of the way right now: I love movies. I've loved them for as long as I can remember. (Full disclosure: I'm done with the superhero thing. It was fun for a while, but now they all seem the same. And besides, sequels, reboots, and remakes are basically the death of originality, as any writer will tell you.) Anyway, I know my insane love for movies pretty much makes me a Big Gay Cliche, but sometimes the stereotypes are right, and there's something to be said for just owning it. In fact, as stressful as our move to Los Angeles had been, I'd been really excited to become part of the filmmaking capital of the world, and also to see the locations of all my favorite movies. (Which isn't to say that Hanc.o.c.k is one of them. Let's just say I may have boned up on trivia about all the movie locations in our neighborhood on the roadtrip down.) Right before we reached Hollywood Avenue, we pa.s.sed one of the buildings for the Church of Scientology - that screwed up Hollywood religion that Tom Cruise is a member of? Supposedly, it's like a cult, and they lure you in and prey on your insecurities, brainwas.h.i.+ng you into giving them all your money, and they blackmail you with details about your private life if you don't pay up.

There was a big red banner on the wall of the building that said, ”All are welcome!”

”What do you think?” I said to Kevin. ”Should we go in?”

”Um, yeah,” Kevin said. ”No, thanks.”

”Seriously, though, don't you want to know how they do it? Don't you feel like, whatever they do, it couldn't possibly work on you? That you're too smart to be brainwashed?”

”Okay,” Kevin said, starting toward the door. ”Let's go in.”

I laughed, stopping him. ”I don't want to know that much! It's like how they claim if you say 'b.l.o.o.d.y Mary' three times in a row into a mirror, the ghost of b.l.o.o.d.y Mary will appear. No one really thinks that, but no one ever wants to test it either.”

Finally, we came to Hollywood Boulevard.

”I can't believe it!” I said. ”Our apartment is six blocks from Hollywood and Vine.”

”What?” Kevin said.

I pointed. ”One block down. That's Hollywood and Vine.”

”Okay,” Kevin said, humoring me again. ”What do you have to tell me about Hollywood and Vine?”

”Nothing,” I said, but I was almost quivering I was so excited. ”Nothing at all.”

”Really?”

”No, not really!” I said, bursting open like the dam in Dante's Peak. ”Hollywood and Vine was the very first intersection in Hollywood, before Hollywood even existed, when the first orchard owner subdivided her land! A couple of decades later, it had become the center of the whole industry, with all the farms and orchards turned into movie lots, and all the movie studios having their headquarters right along this road!”

Kevin glanced around the block we were on. I had to admit it wasn't much to look at now: a tattoo parlor, a payday loan place, a couple of boarded up storefronts, and an actual strip club.

”The movie studios aren't here anymore,” I said. ”They're spread out all over the city. Now this is the tourist-y part of the town. Look, here's the Hollywood Walk of Fame.” I pointed to the sidewalk along Hollywood Boulevard where pink marble stars had been set into black marble squares, each one with a name and little symbol indicating whether the ”star” was a star of movies or TV or whatever. There was dried gum and bird c.r.a.p all over the place, but still.

”The Chinese Theatre is only a few blocks that way,” I went on, pointing away from Hollywood and Vine, ”along with the Egyptian, and the El Capitan, and Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, and that weird sculpture of the four silver women. What's that called anyway? Does it even have a name?”

”The Gateway to Hollywood,” Kevin said.

I frowned. Kevin liked movies too (including - groan - superhero movies), but only as a casual fan. Earlier that year, he hadn't known who Jimmy Stewart was (how is that even possible?). So how in the world did he know something I didn't?

”I'm not a complete idiot,” he said.

”Name three celebrities who have left some kind of imprint in the concrete in front of the Chinese Theatre.”

He looked at me blankly.

And the cosmic scales are righted! I thought.

Feeling way too smug, I led Kevin down Hollywood Boulevard, in the direction of the Chinese Theatre. Technically, we were looking for a place to eat, but I was mostly taking in all the sights. From the street, I could see the famous white ”Hollywood” sign up in the hills to our right. I was also reading the names on the different stars in the sidewalk. (Fun fact: there are actually two Harrison Fords on the Walk of Fame. There's the guy everyone knows, and also a silent film star who everyone's now forgotten.) Kevin and I hadn't intended to get an apartment so close to Old Hollywood - not even me, lover of all things Hollywood. In fact, we'd originally tried to find a place in West Hollywood (and not just because it's so gay, also because it's really nice).

Incidentally, if you don't already know this, West Hollywood is an entirely different town from Hollywood, which actually isn't a ”town” at all (it merged with the city of Los Angeles in 1910). So to clarify: West Hollywood is an actual incorporated city, but Hollywood is just one vague geographic part of Los Angeles, and also sort of a catch-all term for the movie industry in general.

Unlike the crazy business with the different freeway names, I actually think the difference between Hollywood and West Hollywood is pretty interesting, but let me know if I'm boring you.

So anyway, there Kevin and I were, exhausted from moving and starving because we'd been too lazy to even pop something into the microwave.

I looked down at the names on the stars on the Walk of Fame again.

Anne Bancroft!

Richard Pryor!

Graham McNamee!

Who the h.e.l.l is Graham McNamee? I thought. But I wasn't about to ask Kevin for fear that he might possibly know something else I didn't know.

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