The Saint Marquis. Four o’clock. Sunset Boulevard. The sun is huge and burning, an orange monster, as Julian pulls into the parking lot and for some reason he’s passed the hotel twice and I keep asking him why and he keeps asking me if I really want to go through with this and I keep telling him that I do. As’ soon as I step out of the car, I look at the pool and wonder if anybody has drowned in the pool. The Saint Marquis is a hollow hotel; it has a swimming pool in a courtyard surrounded by rooms. There’s a fat man in a lounge chair, his body shining, suntan oil slathered onto it. He stares at the two of us as we walk toward the room Finn told Julian to go to. The man’s staying in room 001. Julian walks up to the door and knocks. The curtains are closed and a face, a shadow, peers out. The door’s opened by a man, forty, forty-five, wearing slacks and a shirt and a tie, who asks, “Yes … what may I do for you?”
“You’re Mr. Erickson, right?”
“Yes … Oh, you must be …” His voice trails off as he looks Julian and me over.
“Is something wrong?” Julian asks.
“No, not at all. Why don’t you two come in?”
“Thanks,” Julian says.
I follow Julian into the room and become unnerved. I hate hotel rooms. My great-grandfather died in one. At the Stardust in Las Vegas. He had been dead two days before anybody found him.
“Would you boys like a drink?” the man asks.
I have a feeling that these men always ask this and though I want one, badly, I look at Julian, who shakes his head and says, “No, thank you, sir.” And I also say, “No, thank you, sir.”
“Why don’t you two boys make yourself comfortable and sit down.”
“Can I take my jacket off?” Julian asks.
“Yes. By all means, son.”
The man begins to make himself a drink.
“Are you in L.A. for long?” Julian asks.
“No, no, just a week, for business.” The man sips his drink.
“What do you do?”
“I’m into real estate, son.”
I look over at Julian and wonder if this man knows my father. I look down and realize that I don’t have anything to say, but I try to think of something; the need to hear my own voice begins to get more intense and I keep wondering if my father knows this guy. I try to shake the thought from my head, the idea of this guy maybe coming up to my father at Ma Maison or Trumps, but it stays there, stuck.
Julian speaks up. “Where are you from?”
“Indiana.”
“Oh, really? Where in Indiana?”
“Muncie.”
“Oh. Muncie, Indiana.”
“That’s right.”
There’s a pause and the man shifts his eyes from Julian to me and then back to Julian. He sips his drink.
“Well, which of you young men would like to get up?” The man from Indiana is gripping his glass too tightly and he sets his drink on the bar. Julian stands up.
The man nods, and asks, “Why don’t you take off your tie?”
Julian does.
The man shifts his gaze from Julian over to me, to make sure that I’m watching.
“And your shoes and socks.”
Julian does this also and then looks down.
“And … uh, the rest.”
Julian slips out of his shirt and pants and the man peels back the window shade and looks out onto Sunset Boulevard and then back at Julian.
“Do you like living in L.A.?”
“Yeah. I love L.A.,” Julian says, folding his pants.
The man looks over at me and then says, “Oh no, this won’t do. Why don’t you sit over there, near the window. That’s better.” The man sits me down in an easy chair and positions me nearer the bed and then, satisfied, walks up to Julian and places his hand on Julian’s bare shoulder. His hand drops down to Julian’s jockey shorts and Julian closes his eyes.
“You’re a very nice young man.”
An image of Julian in fifth grade, kicking a soccer ball across a green field.
“Yes, you’re a very beautiful boy,” the man from Indiana says, “and here, that’s all that matters.”
Julian opens his eyes and stares into mine and I turn away and notice a fly buzzing lazily over to the wall next to the bed. I wonder what the man and Julian are going to do. I tell myself I could leave. I could simply say to the man from Muncie and Julian that I want to leave. But, again, the words don’t, can’t, come out and I sit there and the need to see the worst washes over me, quickly, eagerly.