1 Kind Thing Poetry

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Cut And Run

Chapter 3

3/5/2004

She had a little bit of money with her. She found her way to a little open-air hot dog stand, near Selma and Vine, walking distance from her new home, and right across from the Brown Derby. She ordered the cheapest thing on the menu for her lunch. It was a tiny place, wrapped with a three-sided counter, with stools all around it, and a juke box in the corner. It was right in the middle of everything! It was owned by a bi-racial couple, a tall, bleached blond lady, and her tall black man. Shortly after, they changed the name of the stand to "Soul-Taco." She asked for a job, and got it on the spot. She worked 10 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, for $65.00 a week, under the table. She figured it was a fair trade, since she had no ID, and in those days, it was a crime to be a runaway from home.

They made the best hot pastrami sandwiches, you could ever hope to get a bite of. Juicy, sweet, soft and cooked right there in front of you. To this day, she has never had one better! The grill was right up against the front counter she waited on, facing customers. She could take orders, cook and chat, all at the same time. She was happy to be there, bopping to the music, and cooking up orders. The kitchen for washing dishes, and the stock room were in the back, behind a wall. She did it all; took orders, cooked food, made good old fashioned thick shakes and malts, washed the dishes and checking in deliveries. But it was cool. Hollywood in the summer, in the city, rock and roll blasting from the juke box, a constant parade of entertaining people, and the summer of love! She had her first job ever. She felt awesome!

What was funny, was her dad had worked in Hollywood as a child actor for Hal Roshe, and her mother had waited a counter at Schwabs Drug store, on Sunset Blvd, decades before. So, it almost had a homey feel for her, almost a connection. Almost like she belonged. It was as close to home, as she could get, right then and there.

Soon, word got back to friends in Ventura, she had a place to stay and a job. They came looking for her. Later, she was amused to find out the cops in Ventura, considered her to be a ring leader, leading others to run away from home, offering insight on surviving on the streets. What a joke! She was no leader. She was just a survivor. If others came to her, then let them come. But then again, they did not get jobs and they got picked up by cops, on a regular basis, because they would steal, lie and cheat. So, they did not really follow anything, but their own foolish ways, in her eyes, if you asked her.

She remembers with sadness, the friend who came to stay for a while. Her name was also Debbie. She was two years younger, and was one of her funniest friends. That made a total of three Debbies living in the commune. It was funny when people called on the phone, asking to speak to Debbie. The standard answer was, "Debbie with the short red hair, Debbie with the long brown hair, or Debbie the blond?" Blond Debbie, and Debbie with the long brown hair, had a lot of adventures together, hitchhiking and traveling. Now, here they were, together in Hollywood. Debbie came to visit at the lunch stand one day, but she got bored and told her she was gonna take off. It was after dark, so she said, “Come on Deb, wait till I get off. I’ll walk home with you.” Debbie never had much patience, so angrily replied, "Shut up!" "You are not my mother," and she was "taking off." Said, "See you later at the house," and was gone. She finished her shift without another thought for her wayward friend, except for what a bitch, and pain in the ass, she could be sometimes…

When she got off work, she walked home alone, a long walk after 10 PM, because that’s when streets did get a little weird. It was after curfew, so she had to watch for the “good, bad and the ugly,” as she put it. And she had to make sure she did not give the cops any reason to stop her either. When she got home, she found Debbie, red faced from crying, Debbie's clothes and hair all messed up. She asked her friend, "What happened, why all the tears?"

Debbie said on her way home, she had gotten lazy and careless. She had accepted a ride from some guys. Instead of taking her home, they had taken her up into the hills of North Hollywood, and raped her. Each and everyone of them.

All she could think of was, she had told her friend not to go home alone. So now what? Debbie was in pain, in need of help, and they were runaways. She thought back to when she was just 15 years old, a runaway, and had been raped by a junkie, over in Santa Paula. She never reported it. She had been raised to think everything that happened to her, was somehow, her fault.

Her heart ached for her younger friend. “Don’t worry,” she told Debbie, "tomorrow We’ll go to the free clinic and have you checked out.” She went in search of something to help her friend get to sleep for the night. Thinking back now, it was odd how each of them accepted that this sort of thing just happens. Did Debbie feel worthless too? What kept them from going for help? Did having to go home when they were in trouble seem so much worse than getting them own selves out of trouble?

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"There was a child went forth every day, and the first object he looked upon and recieved with wonder or pity or love or dread, that object he became... And that object became part of him for the day... or for many years or stretching cycles of years." Walt Whitman